Our Terrorists Are an Arm of the GOP. Will Biden Say It? - David Lurie - Daily Beast

Forty three Republican Senators voted voted in favor of acquittal of donald Trump for his incitement of an attack on the Capitol, seven to convict and bar Donald Trump from holding office again.  David Lurie, a New York legal and political commentator, discusses the dilemma Joe Biden faces in his campaign for national unity and for compelling people to take responsibility for the chaos they have created and threaten in the future. 

It is a high wire act: prosecution of the principals who inspired the crude coup and the street level mobsters will provoke the claim that it is the sort of revenge cry that Trump threatened but did not carry out, merely waving the bloody "lock her up" shirt.

Key to demonstrating the falsity of such claims of personal revenge will be supporting and strengthening the resolve of the seven GOP Senators who voted to convict Trump of inciting insurrection and thus barring him from holding office again.

But now, as a Capitol Police after action report showed the seditious threats are deadly serious.  The House Managers demonstrated that in last week's impeachment trial which garnered the support of every Democratic and seven Republican Senators.  Some, like the Editorial Board of the New Jersey Law Journal (on which I sit), have called for incoming A.G. Merrick Garland to conduct a "relentless prosecution".  

As Lurie points out, Garland oversaw the prosecutions of the Oklahoma City bombers.  He will face the allegation that he is seeking revenge against McConnell who obstructed and Trump who put Neil Gorsuch in what would have been Garland's seat on the Supreme Court had Obama's nomination of the centrist judge been treated with traditional respect.

We who appreciate the threat have the duty to show our readers, students, and others that it is the fate of the nation that drives us to support prosecutions of the crimes of the Trump misrule.

- GWC

Our Terrorists Are an Arm of the GOP. Will Biden Say It?

By David R. Lurie

***Recognizing the scope of the threat, President Biden has announced that intelligence agencies will conduct a “comprehensive threat assessment” directed at overhauling the government’s response to domestic extremism.

But given that the links between violent extremism and the Republican Party—along with a large segment of the nation’s population—are now wide and deep, the challenge of uprooting domestic extremist networks and their support structure is more daunting than anything the nation has faced for decades, possibly since Reconstruction. Furthermore, unlike in the wake of the Civil War, today’s supporters of insurrection have not been defeated in battle; to the contrary, some are situated in positions of power and influence. And it is a certainty that they will use every lever available to stymie and undermine any substantial law enforcement efforts.

Many leaders of what has become the GOP “establishment” have reason to fear the kind of thoroughgoing investigation of domestic extremism that law enforcement agencies have previously conducted of foreign extremist groups, one that extends to reach the financial and organizational support for domestic extremist networks. It not only appears likely that such inquiries will reach Republican officeholders, but also some of the party’s wealthiest donors, many of whom have previously been able to mask their identities and roles behind dark money conduits like Donors Trust.

One can well expect those with the most to lose from an effective investigation of the nature and scope of domestic extremism will do everything they can to increase the political stakes, and to demonize the investigators, a strategy Donald Trump employed to great effect.

Leaders on the right are already sending out warning flares to their followers, preemptively challenging the legitimacy of such law enforcement efforts. Tucker Carlson has declaimed to his audience that investigations of white supremacist violence will be an investigation of “you,” and asserted that the direction of law enforcement resources against domestic extremism is a threat to the liberty of all on the right.

For his part, Newt Gingrich—who seethed decades ago as Bill Clinton associated his nihilistic attacks on government institutions with then nascent militia violence—has described the calls for action against insurrectionist celebrity Greene as the actions of a “lynch mob.” Even Nikki Haley, who initially criticized Trump’s incitement (to the displeasure of a GOP gathering), is now mocking Biden for “protecting the Capitol from Americans.”

The purpose of these messages is clear: To create a threat that a thoroughgoing offensive against domestic extremism will lead to a conflagration, as the millions who just went to the polls to vote for Trump and other extremist candidates are induced to feel themselves to be threatened, along with those who incited them.

Furthermore, while there is increasing support for a robust and comprehensive response to domestic violent extremism, and talk about devoting additional resources, there also remains an entrenched resistance in the law enforcement community—including within the FBI—to, finally, taking such steps. That resistance must be overcome. Certainly, Biden’s attorney general nominee, Merrick Garland, who oversaw the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers, understands the nature of the threat.