For many of us, the inclusion of figures like the senators reflects a rogue grand jury.<\/strong><\/p>\n However, Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) insisted that Sen. Lindsey Graham was\u00a0\u201clucky\u201d not to be indicted<\/a>.\u00a0According to Schiff, Graham calling Georgia officials about the counting or discarding of votes was enough to justify a criminal charge.<\/strong>\u00a0Presumably, since Graham could be indicted with Trump, Schiff would also consider him eligible to be barred from ever running again for office under the 14th Amendment, as discussed below.<\/p>\n It is the \u201cwhy not\u201d approach to criminal and constitutional law.<\/strong><\/p>\n Here is my column:<\/em><\/p>\n With the release of the special grand jury final report in Georgia, the nation finally was able to see what\u00a0foreperson Emily Kohrs last February was\u00a0giggling about in interviews<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Call it the \u201cWhy not?\u201d report.<\/p>\n Back then, when Kohrs was asked if there were recommended charges, she chuckled and said,\u00a0\u201cCan you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list of recommended indictments? It\u2019s not a short list. It\u2019s not.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n In addition to nodding at an expected Trump indictment, she added,\u00a0\u201cThere may be some names on that list that you wouldn\u2019t expect.\u201d After all, why not?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The final product did not disappoint.<\/strong>\u00a0The members recommended 39 people for prosecution, including Sen.\u00a0Lindsey Graham\u00a0<\/a>(R-S.C.) and former Sens.\u00a0Kelly Loeffler\u00a0<\/a>(R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.).\u00a0They also included lawyers who argued for recounts or investigations into alleged election fraud.<\/p>\n While the report expressly claims that the Fulton County District Attorney\u2019s office did not create the list, it was the office of\u00a0Fani Willis\u00a0<\/a>that presented the law, the evidence and potential targets to the special grand jury. During that process, these members concluded that politicians voicing support for the former president and his allegations could be criminally charged for doing so.<\/p>\n The news that Willis did not indict Graham and others infuriated many on the left.<\/strong>\u00a0Liberal websites were inundated with\u00a0comments like<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI want all the enablers charged, tried, and given long sentences as traitors to our country\u201d and asking why the list did not include Senators Grassley, Cruz, Lee and \u201c147 current and former members of the House, just to name a few.\u201d<\/p>\n The disappointment of the special grand jury members and commentators is understandable. When one reads the indictment of the 19 defendants, it is surprising that all of the other 20 were dropped. While the indictment does contain serious charges against some individuals, Willis used a sweeping racketeering theory to indict in gross.<\/p>\n One\u00a0possible\u00a0reason\u00a0Willis\u00a0dropped some of these targets\u00a0is that\u00a0she knew the indictment of these senators would have been quickly and firmly rejected by the courts as the criminalization of political speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n However, the 160 individual acts detailed in Willis\u2019s report include speeches and social media postings by Trump and others claiming\u00a0evidence of widespread voting fraud.<\/p>\n I disagree with those claims, but many citizens held the same suspicions of the election. Many still do.<\/p>\n It is understandable why the grand jurors thought that anyone pushing these claims was committing a crime, given the 160 acts cited by Willis. Graham,\u00a0<\/strong>for example,\u00a0called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger<\/a>\u00a0after the November 2020 election to ask about absentee ballots and whether groups of ballots could be rejected.<\/p>\n That call was not ultimately deemed worthy of an indictment. However, Willis launched her investigation based on Trump\u2019s continued demands that Raffensperger investigate the vote tally in two other calls. Once again, I agreed then and now with Raffensperger in his refusal. But the question is whether such requests are evidence of a crime.<\/p>\n I have long criticized the\u00a0misrepresentation of the two Georgia calls by the Washington Post<\/a>, which later issued a correction in its reporting. Although it recently made a\u00a0startling contradictory statement<\/a>\u00a0on the truth of its original claims, the transcript of the calls shows that Trump did not tell officials to simply add more than 11,000 votes.<\/strong><\/p>\n I still disagree with his claims, but I have maintained that Trump was making a predictable argument in a settlement negotiation that he only needed that number of votes and that a new recount or continued investigation would find them.<\/p>\n My questioning of the use of the calls as evidence of a crime has given many people the vapors. They insist that it was preposterous to think that Trump was actually asking for continued recounts or investigations instead of demanding that Raffensperger commit fraud. Yet Raffensperger himself recently took the stand and\u00a0confirmed that the call was a \u201csettlement negotiation\u201d<\/a>\u00a0over whether to conduct further recounts or investigations.<\/p>\n The question is when advocacy or inquiries or negotiations become criminal acts.\u00a0<\/strong>Willis\u2019s first grand jury clearly believed that senators who called for recounts or\u00a0Raffensperger\u2019s resignation<\/a>\u00a0should go to prison. The comparison between their recommendations and the eventual indictment does not clearly answer how such acts are distinguishable as crimes.<\/p>\n The same lack of limiting principle is evident in the new theory being pushed by various experts under the 14th Amendment\u00a0to bar Trump from ballots<\/a>\u00a0on the grounds that he \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion\u201d or gave \u201caid or comfort to the enemies thereof.\u201d\u00a0Beyond the tendentious claim that the Jan. 6 riot was an actual insurrection, they also maintain that the provision is self-executing, requiring no vote of Congress for secretaries of state to bar Trump from next year\u2019s ballots.<\/p>\n Even though Trump has not been charged, let alone convicted, of insurrection (or even incitement),\u00a0these advocates believe that he can be removed from the ballot because of his election claims, his inflammatory rhetoric and his delay in calling for supporters to leave the Capitol. This is one of the most dangerous legal theories to arise in decades.<\/strong><\/p>\n This week, Democratic\u00a0Arizona\u00a0Secretary of State Adrian Fontes\u00a0aptly described the claimed right to disqualify<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cradical\u201d measure that would \u201cencompass every elected office in our government \u2014 state, local, federal, and so forth.\u201d Indeed, Democrats have called for barring not just Trump but\u00a0120 Republicans in Congress<\/a>\u00a0from running for office.<\/p>\n As with the Georgia special grand jury, the question is \u201cWhy not?\u201d If the standard is \u201cgiving aid or comfort\u201d to insurrectionists, then why not throw hundreds of other Republicans who supported the challenge to certification on Jan. 6 off the ballot? And while we\u2019re at it, why not bar every lawyer who helped file claims of voting fraud from ever running for office?\u00a0They all gave aid or comfort with their actions.<\/strong><\/p>\n By this reasoning, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other Democrats could have been barred from ballots for opposing Trump\u2019s certification in 2016 without any basis, along with leaders such as Hillary Clinton, who continued to call the election \u201cstolen\u201d for years. In 2016, there were also violent riots in Washington opposing Trump\u2019s inauguration, thanks in no small part to such rhetoric. We can then have different candidates of both parties removed from ballots in every state.<\/p>\n This \u201cWhy not?\u201d philosophy is all part of our impulse-buy politics, where there is little thought given to the implications of actions beyond immediate vengeance and satisfaction. It is a criminal and political system based on the giddy philosophy of Emily Kohrs.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2023-09-11_05-39-17.jpg?itok=JoP-Fn3A\")
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