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James Carville is furious. Its the LAW!!! If you do not enforce it, Dems will look as weak as people think they are, he texted me earlier this week. I would ask if we could use DC jail for Bannon.

What has Carville itching to put former President Donald Trumps ex-adviser behind bars? Defiance. The special congressional committee charged with investigating the January 6 insurrection gave former Trump White House officials Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Kash Patel, and Dan Scavino until the end of this week to comply with its subpoenas for testimony and records. Bannon has so far refused to cooperate.

Congressional Democrats, who control both chambers and have a majority on the January 6 committee, can ask the House or Senate sergeant-at-arms to arrest Bannon. Yesterday afternoon, though, Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee, announced that he will pursue a more moderate path: Next week, the committee will vote on whether to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.

We fully intend to enforce the subpoenas, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who is one of two Republicans on the special committee, assured me. That doesnt come with the snap of a finger, but we will get to the bottom of these questions and pursue all avenues.

Democrats want to uphold norms of interparty civility while also preventing Trump and his buddies from completely undermining democracy. But time is running out. The January 6 committee is one of Congresss last chances to narrate the Capitol riots and the Trump administrations efforts to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. The only way to fight fascism is with narrative, Masha Gessen, the writer and activist, once told me. The select-committee probe presents a real opportunity to do just that.

Enforcing the committees subpoenas isnt a controversial idea, Representative Eric Swalwell of California told me. We must enforce congressional subpoenas not just for holding insurrectionists accountable but to show everyone in America that we all follow the same rules, he said. If Bannon and company are above the law, why wouldnt nonpublic figures toss their lawful subpoenas in the trash?

Perhaps Bannon thinks that the committee wont follow through, or that jail time might martyr him. Hes dodged consequences for alleged misconduct before. Last year, he faced prison for his role in the We Build the Wall scheme, which prosecutors said was fraudulent, but Trump granted him an 11th-hour pardon. At least hes had some time to think about what he might have to pack.

Read: Republicans refuse to reckon with January 6

The committee had hoped to depose Bannon, Meadows, Patel, and Scavino this week, according to lawmakers, but some members of that group have been more cooperative than others. While Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel are, so far, engaging with the Select Committee, Mr. Bannon has indicated that he will try to hide behind vague references to privileges of the former President, Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, wrote in a joint statement with Thompson.

Bannon seems likely to continue resisting his subpoena. The executive privileges belong to President Trump, and we must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege Mr. Bannon is legally unable to comply with your subpoena requests for documents and testimony, Bannons attorney, Robert Costello, wrote in a letter to the committee earlier this month. Bannon hasnt worked in the executive branch since August 18, 2017, more than 1,500 days ago. And Trump is no longer the chief executivehes just some guy playing golf at his country club. The Biden administration has already waived executive privilege for the Trump-era documents that the January 6 commission was seeking.

The committee is in agreement about pursuing criminal referrals for witnesses who refuse to cooperate with their subpoenas. We now have a Justice Department committed both to the rule of law and to the principle that no one is above the law. The January 6 committee will respond with equal swiftness to those who fail to comply, holding them in criminal contempt and referring them to the Justice Department for prosecution, Representative Adam Schiff of California told me.

The problem with enforcing congressional subpoenas, though, is that it pits two of the Democrats priorities against each other. Democrats have been tasked with both upholding democracy and defending constitutional norms. The norm of the past 90 years has been that congressional subpoenas are honored because the people subpoenaed are honorable. That doesnt seem likely to happen here. Still, Congress hasnt jailed a witness since 1934, when it found William P. MacCracken Jr. in contempt for refusing to participate in a Senate investigation into how federal airmail contracts were awarded. MacCracken was taken into custody by the Sergeant at Arms, although rumor has it that he was held at the Willard Hotel, according to the The Washington Post. A criminal referral to the Justice Department would likely move much slower than MacCrackens arrestand could prove easier to fight. If Bannon can delay long enough, he could simply run out the clock, and hope that Democrats lose control of Congress in 2022.

Because the January 6 committee cannot rely on members of Trumpworld acting honorably, it may have to go further, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told me. Historically, the enforcement mechanism for congressional subpoenas to executive-branch employees was as much political as it was legal, she explained. In other words, the parties negotiated over the scope of subpoenas, because the political cost of outright defiance was seen as too high. Trump broke that process, convincing his followers that refusing to submit to congressional oversight was a virtue, not a violation of our laws. If Congress cant regain the ability to enforce its subpoenas in the light of a norm-breaking presidency, its oversight abilities will be extinguished.

Read: The Capitol rioters won

Last year, Congress drafted a resolution to be used with noncompliant members of the Trump administration. It was meant to give congressional subpoenas teeth. As a police officer, you see a lot of people who think theyre above the law, Val Demings, one of the sponsors of the resolution, told me. We called them habitual offenders, and the only way to stop them is to hold them accountable. When theres no enforcement mechanism, its no surprise that we see corruption, cover-ups, and contempt towards those of us trying to bring accountability to Washington No one is above the law, up to and including the president of the United States.

Will putting Bannon in jail make him tell the truth about what happened leading up to and on January 6? Dont count on it. Will jail be something Bannon can use for fundraising and publicity? Thats one of his core competencies. But a fight with Bannon over congressional power and criminal referrals, however protracted, could help Democrats too. Drawing more attention to the committees investigation and its high stakes isnt necessarily a bad outcome for those of us who want to preserve democracy. If the January 6 committee can hold widely watched, televised hearings, with or without Bannon, perhaps some of the truth will get through to Americans so far unmoved by what happened early this year. The committees power to convince, rather than its power to punish, will matter most.

Read the rest here:
Democrats Are Ready to Send Steve Bannon to Jail - The Atlantic

GOP gubernatorial candidate Gregg Youngkin (L), Former President Donald Trump (R). Getty Images

Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has attempted to distance himself from Donald Trump.

The Democratic National Committee has mocked Trump about this by flying a plane with a banner near Mar-a-Lago.

The Virginia governor race between Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe is currently neck-in-neck.

Democrats have been mocking Donald Trump over gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin's attempts to distance himself from the former president.

Republican Glenn Youngkin is currently running for governor in Virginia against former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who held the position from 2014-2018.

Although Trump has endorsed Youngkin and called him a "great gentleman," the Republican candidate has subtly tried to disassociate himself from the former president.

The Democratic National Committee flew a plane near Trump's Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, carrying a banner that read, "why won't Youngkin let Trump campaign in VA?"

They also erected a billboard in Florida to highlight the former president's endorsement of Youngkin, believing that associating him with Trump will damage his chances in the November 2 election.

On Thursday, Youngkin criticized attendees of a recent GOP "Take Back Virginia" rally who pledged allegiance to a flag that was said to have been flown on January 6 near the Capitol.

"It is weird and wrong to pledge allegiance to a flag connected to January 6," Youngkin said. "As I have said many times before, the violence that occurred on January 6 was sickening and wrong."

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon appeared at the rally and Donald Trump called in on a phone line.

Trump endorsed Youngkin on the call and said, "We've got to get him in. I know Terry McAuliffe very well and he was a lousy governor."

On Thursday, Youngkin avoided answering questions about whether he wanted Trump to campaign for him.

"Anybody who calls me a good man, I so appreciate it, including President Trump," he eventually replied, according to The Hill.

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The Republican candidate has also previously acknowledged Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2020, putting him at odds with Donald Trump and his allies, who continue to make baseless claims about the election being fraudulent.

Youngkin's decision to distance himself from Trump is likely because of the former president's unpopularity in the state.

Democrats had growing success in Virginia during the Trump presidency. In the 2017 governor race, Democratic Ralph Northam defeated the Republican nominee by the largest margin for a Democrat since 1985.

The party then took full control of the state legislature in 2019, and Joe Biden won the state with a solid margin in the 2020 presidential election.

Youngkin is likely aware that the associations with Trump will not help his chances of winning the race, which according to recent polls, is currently neck-and-neck.

Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive and first-time political candidate, has been able to unite the party's business class and its dominant Trump wing, Insider's John L. Dorman recently reported.

Youngkin's approach, along with Biden's sagging ratings, has made the Virginia election very competitive.

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Democrats mock Donald Trump over Virginia governor race ...

Hes the new Trump tower.

Teenage former first son Barron Trump was photographed in the Big Apple this week towering over his 5-foot-11-inch mom, Melania.

The rarely photographed youngest son of former President Donald Trump is already 6 feet 7 inches tall even though he only just turned 15.

He looked every inch of it on Wednesday when he stood head and shoulders over his mom and their security detail as they were snapped leaving their Manhattan home, the suitably named Trump Tower.

The towering teen, wearing a dark, long-sleeve T-shirt tucked into his jeans, also appeared to show impeccable manners, with the Daily Mail saying he was carrying his mothers bag for her.

The rare Louis Vuitton x Richard Prince bag cost $3,995 when it was released in 2008, the outlet said paling in comparison to the $11,000 black Hermes Birkin bag his mom toted.

Former model Melania, 51, also wore a black button-down shirt with white pants that she paired with $645 Christian Louboutin pointy-toe flats.

The former president himself no slouch at 6 feet 3 marveled at a GOP event in North Carolina last month how his youngest is also already the tallest.

Barron is 6-foot-7, can you believe it? And hes 15, Trump said.

Eric is short hes only 6-foot-6, he joked of his 37-year-old son, who was previously the tallest in the family.

Link:
Barron Trump shows off his 6-foot-7 height in NYC

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who sadly passed away from COVID complications, will be remembered for many accomplishments and failings. His legacy will have detractors on the right (he was a sellout who endorsed Obama) and the left (he misled us about WMDs), but I cant help thinking what if he had been the future of the Republican Party?

Counterfactuals are always messy but bear with me. There is reason to believe that Powell was Ronald Reagans vision of the Republican Partys bright future. And Powell might well have defeated Bill Clinton in 1996. That would have made Powell Americas first Black president. Assuming re-election, he would have been president when 9/11 happened. Everything thereafter would, likely, have been very different.

And, of course, its hard to imagine a starker contrast than what eventually happened to America (and the GOP): President Donald J. Trump.

This actually could have happened. Fourteen months before the 1996 presidential election, a Time/CNN poll found that If the 1996 presidential election were held today, Colin Powell, running on the GOP ticket, would beat Bill Clinton 46 percent to 38 percent

So why didnt he run? Powells wife, Alma, probably was the deciding factor. As Howard Fineman wrote in 1995, she worries about her husband's safety and cherishes her privacy Theres also the fact that Powell was, from the start, a liberal Republican in a party that was moving rightward. On a range of issues like abortion and affirmative action, Powell was out-of-step with the conservative zeitgeist. Gary Bauer, who was head of the Family Research Council, called him Bill Clinton with ribbons.

Still, Republicans nominated Bob Dolenot someone like televangelist Pat Robertson or right-wing populist Pat Buchananthat year. And, of course, the GOP ultimately would end up with Donald Trump, whose policies were just as liberal as Powells, and whose personal and professional life were decidedly less conservative. We can only wonder what would have happened if Powell had put everything he had into being the GOP standard bearer, and then the leader of the free world.

This, I believe, was the hope of no less a conservative icon than Ronald Reagan. Consider a Larry King interview from 1991 with then-former President Reagan. The Gipper gushed about his great admiration of him and a personal feeling of friendship for Powell, who had been his National Security Adviser. When asked about future Republican leaders (like Dick Cheney), he demurred.

Later, in 1993, Reagan invited Powell to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, and presented him with an award. I know I shouldnt say this, but I have a confession to make. I just might have had an ulterior motive for inviting Colin Powell up here today to my presidential library, Reagan said. You see, I am hoping that perhaps one day hell return the favor and invite me to his.

Revisionist history cannot assume the most positive alternate version. A Powell presidency might have given us a completely different sort of disaster. But as paleoconservative writer Jim Antle suggests, the Iraq war would likely not have happened: As commander-in-chief, the decisions would have been his. He would have been less inclined to fall under the sway of Cheney and the neoconservatives, if they occupied prominent roles in his administration at all, Antle writes.

No Iraq war probably means no Obama and no Trump. What is more, Bill Clinton (and America) would have been spared the whole Monica Lewinsky ordeal. As for the GOP, Antle writes, Bush Republicanism might not have been best preserved by another Bush.

Instead of that, Powell watched the party slip away from him. In 2014, Powell was asked on Meet the Press about his political affiliation. Im still a Republican, he said. And I think the Republican Party needs me more than the Democratic Party needs me.

By 2021, he said that he could no longer call himself a Republican. In between those years, Donald J. Trump became the Republicans standard bearer, and then Americas president.

For those who say Trump was the GOPs inevitable conclusion, I present President Powell as Exhibit A. Yes, the Grand Old Party hid a long-dormant toxic strain, but it didnt necessarily have to come to a head. Its a shame that a leader like Powell didnt emerge, but ultimately, Republicans own their decisions.

In the run-up to the second Iraq war, Powell became famous for talking about his so-called Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it. Almost immediately, this slogan became a verdict on the failed war that he helped pave the way for. But its also an indictment of Republican voters.

They broke it in 2016. And now, with Trump, they bought it.

Link:
Colin Powell Was Nearly the Future of the GOP Before Trump - The Daily Beast

One of my favorite things about covering political rallies is that they typically start with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. For anyone above school age, occasions to recite the pledge with a large group of people are irregular, and the ritual serves as a good reminder of what politics is about at its best, no matter how divisive what follows might be.

The pledge at a rally for the Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin in Virginia on Wednesday night was different. At the beginning of the event, which Steve Bannon hosted and Donald Trump phoned into, an emcee called an attendee up onstage and announced, Shes carrying an American flag that was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on January 6. Attendees then said the pledge while facing the flag. (Youngkin didnt attend, and later tepidly criticized the moment.)

This is a bizarre subversion. The pledge affirms allegiance to the republic, indivisible and offering justice to all. This flag was carried at a rally that became an attack on the Constitution itself: an attempt to overthrow the government, divide the country, and effect extrajudicial punishment. Elevating this banner to a revered relic captures the troubling transformation of the events of January 6 into a mytha New Lost Cause. This mythology has many of the trappings of its neo-Confederate predecessor, which Trump also employed for political gain: a martyr cult, claims of anti-liberty political persecution, and veneration of artifacts.

Most of all, the New Lost Cause, like the old one, seeks to convert a shameful catastrophe into a celebration of the valor and honor of the culprits and portray those who attacked the country as the true patriots. But lost causes have a pernicious tendency to be less lost than we might hope. Just as neo-Confederate revisionism shaped racial violence and oppression after the war, Trumps New Lost Cause poses a continuing peril to the hope of one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In the immediate aftermath of the failed January 6 insurrection, Trump flailed in his efforts to interpret the days events. He praised the participants even as the riot was ongoing, saying, Go home; we love you. He insisted (despite ample video footage) that what had happened was a peaceful protestsome demonstrators were pacific, while many others were notthough he has also falsely claimed that antifa and Black Lives Matter had instigated a riot. He praised the protesters for courageously fighting back against what he insists, again falsely, was a stolen election, but also criticized police for using excessive force.

Out of this murk, a unified mythology has begun to form. Trump hasnt so much resolved the contradictions as transcended them. To him and his movement, January 6 was a righteous attempt by brave patriots to take back an election stolen from them. The days events produced a martyrAshli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to enter the Speakers Lobby of the House. The rioters who remain imprisoned, meanwhile, are political prisoners. Now objects carried that day have become sacred too.

David A. Graham: Donald Trumps lost cause

During his term as president, and especially during its last summer, Trumpthough a lifetime New York City residentcelebrated the Confederate battle flag, praised Robert E. Lees generalship, and defended statues honoring Confederates. These statues were not erected immediately after the war. Rather, they first required the creation of the Lost Cause mythology late in the 19th century. As the law professor Michael Paradis wrote in The Atlantic,

the Lost Cause recast the Confederacys humiliating defeat in a treasonous war for slavery as the embodiment of the Framers true vision for America. Supporters pushed the ideas that the Civil War was not actually about slavery; that Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, gentleman, and patriot; and that the Ku Klux Klan had rescued the heritage of the old South, what came to be known as the southern way of life.

Many of the monuments themselves were put up at times of conflict over civil rights for Black Americans. They took on a quasi-religious cast. At Washington and Lee University, where Lee served as president after the war, the chapel features a recumbent statue of the general where a church would typically have an altar. The building where General Stonewall Jackson was taken and died after being wounded at Chancellorsville was preserved, first by a local railroad and then by the National Park Service, and until 2019, was known as the Stonewall Jackson Shrine.

After Congress decided in 1905 to send back flags captured during the Civil War to their home states, Virginia placed the ones it received in a Richmond museum that, as Atlas Obscura describes, began as a shrine to the Confederate cause, filled with memorabilia sourced from Confederate sympathizers. To Lost Cause adherents, these flags were hallowed because they had been carried by the boys in gray as they bravely fought against Yankee aggression.

From the June 2021 issue: Why Confederate lies live on

The paradigmatic moment for the Lost Cause myth is Picketts Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, a bloody, hour-long Confederate onslaught later called the high water mark of the rebellion. As my colleague Yoni Appelbaum wrote in 2012, the label was unearned. The charge was a disaster, as was immediately clear to Lee, who told the survivors it was his fault. Its fate did not change the outcome of the war or even necessarily the Battle of Gettysburg. Though the assault was initially apotheosized by a pro-Union artwork, it was soon adopted by Lost Cause proponents as a moment of valor. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when its still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, William Faulkner wrote in 1948.

Like Picketts Charge, the January 6 insurrection was a disastrous error. It did nothing to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Bidens election, and, in fact, several Republican members who had planned to object to the results decided against doing so after the riot. It got Trump impeached, a second time, and further tarnished his reputation, which hardly seemed possible.

Martyrdom is not necessarily nefarious, and some who die in battle do deserve veneration. Some heroes deserve veneration. Answering Stonewall Jackson, the Union had its own martyrs, such as Elmer Ellsworth. Ashli Babbitts death was awful. It was perhaps unnecessary for Lieutenant Michael Byrd to open fire, and it was certainly unnecessary for her to be in the Capitol that day, where she died in the name of lies that Trump and others had told her. As the journalist Zak Cheney-Rice writes, Trumps aggrandizement of her death is rooted not in any genuine affectionhe is largely incapable of caring about anyone but himselfbut in opportunism.

The problem with these myths, the Lost Cause and the New Lost Cause, is that they emphasize the valor of the people involved while whitewashing what they were doing. The men who died in Picketts Charge might well have been brave, and they might well have been good fathers, brothers, and sons, but they died in service of a treasonous war to preserve the institution of slavery, and that is why their actions do not deserve celebration.

The January 6 insurrection was an attempt to subvert the Constitution and steal an election. Members of the crowd professed a desire to lynch the vice president and the speaker of the House, and they violently assaulted the seat of American government. They do not deserve celebration either.

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January 6 Has Become the New Lost Cause of Donald Trump - The Atlantic