Reginald J. Clyne, Esq. – (Source: www.miamitimesonline.com) – The Congressional Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is putting a hurt on Donald Trump and his allies.
The hurt must be good, because Fox News elected from the start not to broadcast the hearings. This means that hardcore Maga supporters will get their hearing news from the channel’s midnight show and Trump tweets, rather than hear live testimony from mainly Republicans and former White House staffers testifying about how Trump led the charge to overturn our 230-year-old democracy.
Trump is the only U.S. president to reject a peaceful transition of power, instead inciting his supporters to attack the Capitol to stop the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes.
Bannon’s lawyers did not call on any witnesses and intend to appeal. I hazard a guess that they will lose the appeal and he will go to jail. CNN produced a documentary about Bannon, who is apparently a student of the Hitler propaganda strategy and employs the same strategy to create fear and stoke racism in this country.
I keep comparing similarities between the Trump and Hitler regimes, but to learn that Bannon studied the Nazi propaganda strategy, which was to lie, lie, lie until those lies are believed by the masses, is quite scary. Just like Hitler, Trump and Bannon are playing on the fears of white Americans to rally behind a racist who portends to “make America great again,” a slogan borrowed from the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump’s undoing is led by a Black man and a Black woman. Chairman Bennie Thompson is leading the Jan. 6 committee, while vice chair Liz Cheney is helping to lay out a riveting story of how the insurrection was planned and unfolded. Cheney may lose her congressional race as a result, but she will go down in history as woman of integrity, who fought against a plot to overthrow our government.
I have worked with the Department of Justice in only one case, but in my experience, it normally has an overwhelming amount of evidence when it finally pulls the trigger after taking its sweet time. In this case, Garland will be prosecuting a former president, so his evidence and his case must be airtight.The DOJ has been prosecuting the insurrectionists. There have been 840 arrests, with 185 people having received criminal sentences and many more awaiting trial. The DOJ is obviously taking out the little fish, but I am hoping that they will soon go after the big fish, starting with Trump, and work its way down.
For our democracy to survive, the DOJ, Willis and other prosecutors must clean house. Trump, Bannon, Giuliani, Sens. Hawley and Graham, and others who attempted to tamper with our election process must go to jail.
For the DOJ investigations to fizzle out would be a travesty.
Reginald J. Clyne is a Miami trial lawyer who has practiced in some of the largest law firms in the United States. Clyne has been in practice since 1987 and tries cases in both state and federal court. He has lived in Africa, Brazil, Honduras and Nicaragua.