On January 6th, 2021, the insurrectionists Trump had summoned to Washington to storm the Capitol constructed a noose outside the Capitol and began chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” When informed that they were threatening to hang Mike Pence, his own Vice President, Donald Trump replied, “Mike deserves it” and said that those rioters were not doing anything wrong. Since then, Donald Trump has contended that the responsibility for the attempted coup on January 6th was the fault of Mike Pence …
“Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6.”
In March of this year, Pence said at the Gridiron dinner in Washington …
“His reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
Now, against that backdrop, here is what Mike Pence said on Wednesday regarding the indictment that would be handed down the next day (yesterday) …
“I hope the DOJ thinks better of it and resolves these issues without an indictment. No. 1, I think it would be terribly divisive to the country.”
“ I think it would also send a terrible message to the wider world. I mean, we’re the emblem of democracy. We’re the symbol of justice in the world.”
Take a minute to process that … and to pick your jaw up off the floor.
First … “divisive to the country”??? Seriously??? Has Pence turned on the news, picked up a paper, or gone online for the past two years??? Thanks in large part to Trump’s never-ending spew of hate speech, this nation is more divided than it has ever been since the end of the Civil War! There is no longer ANY middle ground. Trump being convicted and sentenced to prison would be the best thing that could happen to the country.
Second … Donald Trump intentionally and with malice put Pence and his family in serious danger. He put the entire nation in serious danger. But Pence’s excuse smells like what comes out of the rear end of a bull!
Indicting a ‘man’ who placed the entire nation in danger, a ‘man’ who grievously harmed that democracy that Pence says we are an emblem of, a ‘man’ who engaged in criminal misconduct, a ‘man’ who has lied to the people who placed their trust, their lives into his hands, is not a black mark, it merely shows the world that we made a mistake and we’re attempting to rectify it! It says to the world that we will not tolerate a crooked regime, one who acts out of self-interest. It shows the world we realize we are not infallible, but that we will hold everyone, regardless of who they are or what position they served in, accountable for their actions.
If we fail to hold Trump accountable for his crimes, the message we send to the world is that we are no longer a democracy, that we are a corrupt regime that is willing to re-install a criminal in the highest office of the land. We will have proven that we are no better than Hungary, North Korea, or maybe even Iran.
But third … how in the Sam Hell does Pence think the Department of Justice could “resolve these issues without an indictment?” Does he think there’s a magic wand that Attorney General Garland can wave that will make the whole document theft simply disappear, erase everyone’s memory of it? This is not a damned board game where you can just swipe the board clean and set it up afresh!
And then Pence went on to say, “I don’t know the facts of the former president’s case.” He doesn’t know the facts, but he knows it could be resolved without an indictment? Isn’t that somewhat like a doctor trying to diagnose cancer over the phone?
We the People have been waiting for this indictment for a long time, and no doubt there will be turmoil and chaos in the coming months, most of it caused by Trump himself and his rabid followers, but at the end of the day, all we want is justice. We want to know for a fact that there is equal justice under the law, no matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, and no matter if you were once called ‘Mr. President.’
Mike Pence once earned a degree of respect in my eyes for doing his job and certifying the 2020 election rather than doing as his boss demanded and throwing the nation into chaos. However, for him to deny accountability to his former boss is disrespectful to We the People and to the nation.