“In this country, no one is above the law” has become a rallying mantra of both our national media and increasing, the Democratic Party (but is there a difference, really?). Attorney General Merrick Garland used this phrase on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, as did President Joe Biden during a friendly kid glove chat with ProPublica reporter John Harwood.
As justification for pursuing more than ninety indictments on several fronts against former president Donald Trump, on everything from electioneering to housing classified documents, the left has pounded the tables on the rule of law being the most important foundational principal to the survival of the Republic itself. And it has been solemnly reported that way by several cable news infotainment, including Jake Tapper and Rachel Maddow.
Well now they get to put this claim to the test. This past weekend, as members of Congress were staying to vote on a continuing resolution to avert a possible government shutdown, Representative Jamaal Bowman, from New York, was captured on video camera in the federal Cannon Building appearing to pull a red and clearly-labeled fire alarm. Bowman’s excuse, per his office, was that he was in a hurry and the notion of a push-bar exit door confused and disoriented him at the time.
Triggering a false fire alarm in a federal building is a violation of 18 USC 1512(c) and can carry with it a punishment of up to $10,000 in fines and a prison sentence of up to six months. Bowman could, however, be in even deeper legal trouble for subverting an official government proceeding, which is a felony that can carry a maximum of twenty years in prison. This is, by the way, the same statue that DC prosecutors and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice are using against citizen rioters who breached the capitol building on January 6, 2021.
In March of this year, Bowman posted to his Twitter account, “No one in this country is above the law — including former president Trump.” These words were in response to the first of several indictments against the former president and appear to express a sentiment neither Bowman nor his office really believe. His office reportedly circulated a talking point memo to members of his party, going so far as to accuse Republicans taking any kind of censure or expulsion measures against him as “Nazis.” The memo also stated that Bowman was in a hurry due to the rushed CR Republicans put forward, and in a complaint, stated they were not given enough time to read the seventy-page CR.
This memo was both an instruction document to members of Bowman’s party and to DC journalists who reported his office’s claim without scrutiny. So if journalists aren’t going to get to the bottom of this, that leaves Merrick Garland, who also stated during his 60 Minutes interview that, “We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats. We don’t have one rule for foes and another for friends.”
I guess we’re going to find out if what Garland says is true, aren’t we? Either every law is a sacred bound to a uniform standard of justice, and those who violate it must be punished to the furthest extent, or they can be dismissed at will, as Bowman himself stated.
Lock him up.
