OPINION:
Donald Trump’s lawyers spent the holidays scrambling to keep their client out of jail before the November election. Special counsel Jack Smith spoiled festivities for attorneys on both sides by submitting a filing last week in his case seeking to punish the former president for daring to question the 2020 election results.
Specifically, Mr. Smith blasted Mr. Trump for attempting to inject “partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues” into a case in which an ambitious partisan prosecutor is asking a judge appointed by Barack Obama to prohibit a former president from questioning the charges against him at trial.
The special counsel says Mr. Trump has been making “baseless political claims” to “support a jury nullification argument” in Washington — as if a jury consisting entirely of individuals who voted for President Biden would ever be inclined to do such a thing.
Should U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan agree, Mr. Trump wouldn’t be able to say he’s being selectively and vindictively prosecuted by a partisan coordinating his actions with the White House, nor that he has already been exonerated on the bogus “insurrection” charge by the only court with actual jurisdiction over such matters — the Senate.
What’s really driving Mr. Smith, however, is his desire to block the former president from raising doubt about the core of the case: the fiction created by Democrats and their media allies that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection.”
When Mr. Trump called on the public to march “over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” the idea was to embolden lawmakers to investigate election shenanigans created by novel — and in some cases, illegal — mail-in balloting rules.
It is preposterous to think then-President Trump would enlist a disorganized crowd of people wearing “Make America Great Again” hats led by a guy dressed up like a shaman — and not the actual army under his command — to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
In contrast, a real insurrection was in the works in 1806. Former Vice President Aaron Burr conspired with a foreign power to raise an actual army to capture New Orleans and seize Western territories two years after he had shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. While what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 deserves condemnation, leftist attacks over the past several decades demonstrate what real violence looks like.
In 1954, four pistol-wielding activists opened fire from the visitors gallery in the House chamber, injuring five members. Then-Rep. Alvin Bentley, a Michigan Republican, was struck in the chest and given 50-50 odds of survival when he arrived at the hospital.
In 1971 and 1983, Weather Underground activists set off bombs on the Senate side that each caused damage to the building far beyond a few broken windows. In 2017, a crazed Bernie Sanders supporter shot six Republicans while they practiced for the Congressional Baseball Game at a field in Alexandria, Virginia. Then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise was hospitalized in critical condition but recovered after undergoing several surgeries.
That’s more akin to insurrection than anything that happened two years ago. Today, Mr. Smith is the only person attempting to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.
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