Justice for January 6 Prisoners Will Take Political Power, Not Performances
Preferring results over signaling should not difficult to grasp.
Lacking anything real to complain about in Ron DeSantis’s governing record and political positions, those with career incentives to prop up Donald Trump as if he isn’t an abysmal failure and electoral burden resort to some pretty convoluted reasoning to try to tear him down.
The tripe about him being a secret globalist henchman of Paul Ryan and Karl Rove is largely limited to the internet fever swamps (and, er, the mouth of a former President of the United States), but “conservative” media figures with at least the pretense of legitimacy have settled on the idea that he is somehow unreliable on the subject of the Left’s weaponization of federal law enforcement against its political enemies.
The charge is in nakedly bad faith: DeSantis has defended Trump time and time and time and time and time and time again as far back as the original Russagate hoax, has been more aggressive and proactive in fighting the Left than any other officeholder in America, said on day two of his campaign that he would be “aggressive at issuing pardons” for all manner of targeting on “day one” of his presidency, is running on a comprehensive plan to “break up” a “weaponized” federal law enforcement apparatus, ousted George Soros-backed prosecutors, and during his time in Congress was one of the Republicans pushing to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over his agency’s targeting of conservatives, and publicly calling out Paul Ryan for standing in the way (you know, the Paul Ryan whose speakership Trump helped save months later).
So how do they spin DeSantis into a squish on the issue? Primarily through good old-fashioned lying. Last weekend, The Federalist executive editor Joy Pullmann (disclosure: a former classmate of mine at Hillsdale College, though we didn’t know each other that well) accused DeSantis of “[p]retending Democrats' attempt to JAIL their top political opponent is legitimate” and “tacitly approving of Putin-like behavior,” on the basis of an interview segment in which DeSantis said nothing of the kind.
The actual exchange:
MSNBC HOST WILLIE GEIST: You did say, Governor, in that August debate when the question was put to the panel, if Donald Trump is convicted, will you—and he is the nominee, would you still support him? And you raised your hand. You’re a lawyer, you’ve served in the Navy, you were well-trained at the greatest schools. Do you really believe that a man who’s convicted of, say, attempting to overturn the 2020 election or taking nuclear secrets back to his beach club, do you actually still as we sit here today believe that person should be president?
DESANTIS: So I signed a pledge, Willie, and, and that pledge is what it is. Now, do I think somebody under those circumstances could get elected president? The answer is no. That will not happen, I think Republican voters will understand that as we get closer to, to voting, but it is, it would be fatal in a general election. And I don’t think the party should, should nominate in that situation. However, you know, I signed the pledge, I’m a Republican, I don’t think it’s gonna come to that, and I think we’ll get the job done like we need to, but the reality is, I signed it and that’s what I did.
Not a word of that could be honestly described as condoning actions he’s repeatedly condemned, which is presumably why all Pullmann could muster in response to critics was empty, flippant dismissiveness and straw-manning (not the greatest advertisement for Hillsdale’s journalism program and its stated commitment to “the restoration of ethical, high-minded journalism standards”).
DeSantis’s real sin here is not going out of his way to clean up after an opposing candidate, and the idea that he’s under any obligation to every single time the subject comes out is doubly galling coming from people who seem to think Trump doesn’t owe DeSantis the courtesy of not blatantly lying about him every time he opens his mouth. Even worse from the MAGA infotainment grifter perspective, he dared to point out what the real-world ramifications of Trump’s predicament will most likely be, which is anathema for those who thrive on endlessly selling the same impotent complaints about fairness but ought to be kind of important to those concerned about preventing another four years (or more) of national leftist governance.
As conservative attorney Will Chamberlain put it Wednesday:
The DC trial starts in March. Trump has no hope of an acquittal, not with a DC jury and a rabidly partisan judge. The appeals process won't proceed quickly enough for him to have any adverse trial rulings tossed out before Election Day.
So he's going to be a convicted felon by Election Day. Most likely by June. What does that actually mean, if he were to be the nominee?
Well, first and foremost, he could simply be incarcerated. Once he's convicted, Judge Chutkan - who hates him - could simply remand him into custody. Alternatively, if she felt like being generous (and why would she), she could simply restrict his travel pending sentencing.
No rallies. No GOTV efforts. Biden chose to run a basement campaign. Trump - in the best scenario! - will likely be forced to do so. And that's just the one case in DC! Trump will likely be sitting in a defendant's chair during most of the general election campaign. What's the plan to win, given that reality? What's the plan to avoid a complete landslide? Is there one?
Fair? Of course not. Miscarriage of justice? You bet. But it will affect us just the same. Children wallow in self-pity about unjust circumstances; adults deal with the real world as they find it. Conservatives used to understand that.
The other pillar of this attack is DeSantis’s supposed negligence in standing up for defendants arrested in connection with the January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill. “Journalist” and J6 specialist Julie Kelly, previously seen blatantly lying about Trump’s ability to pardon his non-violent supporters before leaving office, continues to harp on DeSantis supposedly for never having “spoken out” in support of J6 defendants from Florida. When pressed with the tiny detail that a state governor has no power over federal charges, she reduced her expectations to “at least a meeting? Or responding to letters and calls? Maybe a visit to a prison holding J6ers?”
In point of fact, it’s not true that DeSantis has been silent on the issue—within days of the riot he condemned the violent offenders while pointing out that the vast majority of Trump supporters in DC were peaceful that day, on the one-year anniversary he blasted the narrative that it was terrorism or an “insurrection,” in September he said, in response to the convictions of several Proud Boys members, that there are “examples of people that should not have been prosecuted” as well as “excessive sentences,” and as mentioned above, he’s promising a comprehensive, case-by-case review of potential pardon recipients, including J6ers.
However, while it’s disingenuous for conservative media professionals who know better to frame it as something deeper in light of his full record and the record of who he’s up against, it is true that DeSantis’s lawyerly instincts that prevent him from being more blunt on these things create a perception issue for bad-faith actors to exploit. I am not privy to his or his team’s decision-making on these things, or who he has and has not met with, but it would have helped him to find some receptive defendants and families to reach out to with some symbolic gestures of support.
That said, consider the following—while not what the government calls them and not deserving of wildly disproportionate charges or pretrial abuse, a number of J6ers, including people Kelly has specifically condemned DeSantis for not championing, are hardly innocent angels. In December, for instance, she cited defendants Joseph Padilla, who hit a cop in the head with a flagpole then declared “it’s guns next” on social media; Chris Worrell, who pepper sprayed cops; and Thomas Caldwell, who texted and posted about “assaulting” the Capitol, knowing where Mike Pence lived, and wanting Trump to “start rounding up and executing traitors.” A search of Kelly’s Twitter, Substack, and American Greatness archives yields no instances of her seriously disputing that they did any of these things, beyond an unelaborated claim that the evidence Worrell did so “is less than convincing,” and, bizarrely, a tweet that seems to be taking issue with classifying pepper spraying someone as a violent crime. When pressed with Padilla’s act, she doesn’t deny it.
You don’t have to think these people have been fairly treated, deserved their specific charges, or in Caldwell’s case should have been charged at all to recognize that these are not the sort of acts any political candidate in his right mind would want to be publicly associated with. Just because someone isn’t the complete monster the Left made him out to be doesn’t mean he should be regarded as a squeaky-clean good guy. And if bad behavior gets you in trouble far beyond what you actually did, that might entitle you to a political remedy—but not to have officeholders torch their own images just for a photo-op on your behalf.
It should be equally obvious that Democrats and the media want to keep the subject of January 6 alive because they see it as helpful to them and harmful to us. So simply ask yourself, what would actually help J6ers more: performative lip service and arm-locking with people who can be easily represented as nutjobs (in a few cases because they are), which the Left can use to smear a candidate in the eyes of voters he needs to reach the presidency? Or keeping a candidate’s eyes on the prize, laying out a clear position on what to do about the issue backed by a rock-solid record, while otherwise avoiding minefields that would keep him out of the office needed to exercise the pardon power and actually get justice for them?
If I or a loved one was facing the possibility of a lifetime in prison, there’s no question as to which one I would prefer. But then, I don’t live on a business model dependent on fanboys for the guy who caused the predicament.