There needs to be justice served for those who have willfully damaged the US during the past decade. This is a critical piece of the puzzle if the Trump administration is to succeed.
When Donald Trump took office the first time around, he made a point of not prosecuting Hilary Clinton. Clinton certainly had engaged in activities that deserved additional legal scrutiny. In violation of the law, she set up her “homebrew” server system to bypass Freedom of Information (FOI) Act requests. She deleted over 30,000 emails that were the subject of an active Congressional subpoena. She laughed at the destruction of the digital material and the phones associated with her illegal activity. Trump no doubt felt sorry for Clinton, as she had been superseded by Obama and when it came time for her to run, she fell flat on her face. He also no doubt assumed that by not prosecuting Hilary he would help heal the nation.
Justice and revenge often look the same but they are not. There is a true need for justice to be applied to a whole host of Americans who seriously damaged the Republic through their actions. Punishment serves several purposes. Firstly, it ends the opportunity to get away with bad behavior for the party being prosecuted or punished. Next, it sends a message to other civil servants that any malfeasance or failure will be met with appropriate retribution. And finally—and most importantly—it gives the public confidence that those who fail or engage in illegality will be dealt with and not just be given a pass.
Let’s look at some of the people who should be investigated, prosecuted or punished for their incompetence, failure, or criminality. This list is by no means complete.
– 9/11. The death of nearly 3,000 Americans led to no punishments or fired federal officials. There were clearly failures at multiple levels of government: the CIA knowing America’s enemies and their plans. The FBI following potential terrorists inside the US. TSA and its inability to identify the box cutters used to take over the planes. One might say that it’s too late to send people to jail, but an honest report with names and descriptions of failures would be a good start. Some people might deserve to lose their pensions.
– The IRS. Louis Lerner used her position in the non-profits department to intentionally harm Tea Party associated groups in their ability to raise money before the 2010 midterm elections. She eventually left the IRS and kept her pension. She should lose that pension, minimally.
– The FBI and DoJ. The two groups are out of control. The FBI has made it its custom to use maximum level force on conservative individuals or Trump associates. Not only must these organizations be cleaned out, but any illegality related to targeting Americans must be identified with the appropriate officials being arrested and prosecuted. We don't need a US Stasi.
– Hillary Clinton. While it may be too late to punish the former first lady, the American people need a full report of the illegality performed not only by Clinton but also by her associates. Her actions were intended to hide the activities that she and the Clinton Foundation were running under the radar: give a significant donation to the Clinton Foundation and land a meeting with the sitting Secretary of State (she ran a parallel operation to the Bidens) The American people need to know how terrible this woman truly is and how condescending was her view of the American people. We’ll see below that others learned from her playbook to hide critical information from the American people.
– The Bidens. We need to know the full extent of Hunter Biden’s activities and Joe Biden’s use of the office of vice-president to enrich the Biden clan. Let Joe go off into the sunset, but the American people need to know exactly how he used his position to make money and tilt US policy to the interests of his son’s business partners.
– The COVID-19 Disaster. Drs. Fauci and Collins should be the first but not only officials who should be investigated and, if relevant, prosecuted, for the enormous damage they did to the American people. They misled the people on the usefulness of masks and the efficacy of the new mRNA vaccines. They did everything to destroy those who suggested alternative, more rational approaches to the pandemic (“The Great Barrington Declaration”). They funded the Wuhan lab in its performance of gain-of-function experiments that got away. These people need to be held accountable with their counterparts at the CDC and vaccine manufacturers for their obfuscation and outright lying to the American public.
– The January 6th Congressional Committee. Everything about this committee was wrong. Nancy Pelosi made a first by rejecting members offered by Republicans and instead inserting her own pet Republicans (Kinzinger and Cheney) in their place. The committee ignored key testimonies, such as that of the then head of the Capitol Police. It refused to release thousands of hours of video, some of which would have exonerated people arrested after the event. It refused to investigate Pelosi’s role in not bringing in the National Guard, something that President Trump had suggested prior to the rally he held on that day. The members of Congress used this committee to harm President Trump’s reelection bid and to demonize patriotic Americans.
This list is by no means complete. The new DoJ may wish to look at its internal activities related to the selective Trump prosecutions or if there is any patent illegality in the 2020 elections. Accountability is critical if the American people are to believe in their government. Seeing former officials in handcuffs and facing 20 years in jail in place of a placid retirement will both encourage Americans that there is justice in the system and will let bureaucrats know that their actions will have consequences. I did not mention above the infamous 51 intelligence folks who signed on that fake “the laptop is Russian disinformation” document. Several of them lied to Congress. They too should be given a knock on the door by the reformed FBI and face potential prosecution for their lying to Congress and the American people. This is not revenge. This is housekeeping. If those who broke the law are not held accountable, Americans will give up on their leaders and those in power will realize that they can get away with criminal activity with no fear of prosecution.
One may argue that our faces should only be facing forwards or that we are better than that or let bygones be bygones. But one cannot move forward until the past is addressed. Messrs. Fauci, Collins and their colleagues used nongovernmental emails and intentionally misspelled words in order to avoid FOI requests. They said after the fact that they don’t know where the six foot rule came from and that maybe getting the vax would not guarantee that a person would not get sick again. The US needs to deal with those who lied to the people and abused their power for personal gain or interest. Being better than that and ignoring past malfeasance will only lead to more of it in the future.