Written By: Anton Sawyer
Whenever a crime is committed, there is always going to be a slew of unintended consequences/fallout. This is why the legal concept of “fruit from the poisoned tree” even exists. Through discovery, any number of other crimes that weren’t initially realized be brought into the light, thereby being added on at a later time. It seems that the January 6th insurrection is one of those events, with a civil-war-inspired constitutional amendment attempting to be utilized against a sitting congressional member. This has allowed for the possibility that the 14th amendment could be brought against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, thereby preventing her from running for re-election. And to be honest, I think her removal from any ballots is a guarantee that we will see another insurrection—just on a state level this time.
That’s what the article today is going to look at: how Greene’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection could lead her to being pulled from statewide ballots, and how GOP leadership is doing everything they can to insulate both her, and themselves, from any accountability for that fateful day by utilizing the poetry of double-speak, and how this linguistic manipulation could lead us down the same violent path.
In an attempt to maintain complete transparency, all research and statistical fact-checking for all articles can be found in the bibliography linked here.
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It's important to start from the fact that despite hundreds of cases stemming from the insurrection, federal authorities haven't charged any public officials with violating the insurrection portion of US law. The reason for this, at the end of the day, is because they know that by allowing any of the Republican leadership to be scapegoated for their involvement on that fateful day, will guarantee the removal of that leader’s name from any future ballots. This fact stems from Section 3 of the 14th amendment which reads: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." This amendment was birthed from an attempt by the US government to prevent confederate leaders to gain political positions after the Civil War. It’s this “will they/won’t they” gray area that Greene currently finds herself in.
If you haven’t been watching, Greene has been spending the month of April 2022 in a court of law under deposition while the court tries to determine what role she played in the Jan. 6 attack. If she has been found guilty of involvement, then the 14th amendment would be plausible and she would then be ineligible to run for the House of Representatives. Knowing this, her testimony has been designed to prevent this possibility from even getting to the point of serious discussion. When watching her responses, it would seem like a no-brainer that she was involved.
During the hearings, CNN published text messages in which Greene, in the weeks after Election Day 2020, suggested to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that then-President Donald Trump could declare martial law to change the results of the presidential election. When questioned, she said she did not know whether the FBI was behind the attack. She then name-checked a figure at the center of the fringe theories that the assault was an FBI false flag plot and said "there's a lot of investigations that need to happen." Even when asked questions that would establish her as a viable witness in her own defense through character examination, she has nearly perjured herself by first denying attacks she made against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi before admitting to them when concrete evidence was provided. Of course, when she did an interview shortly thereafter with conservative talk show host Buck Sexton, she had all the excuses. My favorite was when she claimed she got confused because this was “[her] first time on the witness stand in court,” and she “didn’t know what was going on.”
Before I continue, in all fairness to Greene, she’s just following the examples of this toxic variety of doublespeak that have been given by the most (politically) powerful Republican in Congress: Mitch McConnell. McConnell was sure that the January 6th insurrection was going to be the final nail in the coffin for Trump. "I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself," McConnell told The New York Times's, Jonathan Martin. "He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Couldn't have happened at a better time." And then, a month later, he had a difficult time resolving his actions with his words. Though McConnell voted against convicting Trump for his role in the insurrection, his words laid bare his true feelings. "Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty," McConnell said at one point. "There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day," he said at another. And McConnell closed with this: "The Senate's decision does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day. It simply shows that senators did what the former President failed to do: We put our constitutional duty first."
Greene has used this example of shifting blame through misdirection perfectly throughout her legal troubles. No matter how hard she was grilled on the stand, Greene made sure to rely on the tried-and-true lie that has been proliferating amongst her Republican leadership allies since the insurrection took place—turning the attackers into the victims. When asked whether anyone from Antifa or Black Lives Matter was arrested or charged for the Capitol assault, Greene said she didn't know, while hinting at the false political prisoner narrative that the January 6 defendants are being unjustly jailed. "I know they were arrested all over the country much through 2020 and over 95% of them had their charges dropped, unlike January 6 rioters that are still in jail," she said.
It's with this level of contradiction that we have been able to see the GOP hold a very dualistic ideology when it comes to the criminals of January 6th: everyone who raided the capital should be held accountable except for any Republicans as they were trying to save democracy. And yes, those that wanted to kill members of Congress to ensure their guy won are the victims in this entire situation.
Arizona Representative Paul Gosar claimed in July 2021 that jailed rioters who had supposedly spent time in solitary confinement "are not unruly or dangerous, violent criminals" but are "political prisoners who are now being persecuted"; he suggested that there are "nearly 200" nonviolent Capitol participants behind bars. And the pro-Trump group behind September's "Justice for J6" rally said its event was meant "to bring awareness and attention to the unjust and unethical treatment of nonviolent January 6 political prisoners."
Knowing how important they are to the growth of the Republican party, the talk-show pundits have also made sure to toe this line in an attempt to preserve the “innocence of the elephants.” In an early 2021 video, when talk show host Jesse Kelly asked author and former Green Beret Jim Hansen about the conditions the January 6th insurrectionists were being held in, Hansen took the bait. Hansen stated they were "being held in solitary confinement as political prisoners like we live in the Soviet Union or former East Germany." To which Kelly asked the follow-up question, "Why are they being held ... obviously the crimes don't warrant that Jim, so I mean ..." Afterward ensues a back-and-forth that paints a picture of an evil, liberal justice system casting doubt about the integrity of these ultra-patriotic Americans who weren't trying to overthrow the US Government AT ALL. That these martyrs who took up the cause in good faith when practicing their Constitutional right of the freedom to protest are being treated like a common threat to society. And all done because of the whims of some Communist-activist judge.
To continue these levels of deception moving along, Republican House members have been standing resolute in their attempts to prevent any truth from coming to light. In 2022, January 6th committee members have asked three GOP lawmakers—Jim Jordan of Ohio, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California—to testify voluntarily. All have refused. Given the potential fallout that such testimony could bring, their denial isn't surprising. What is surprising is the level of insulation from having to admit to their plans that they're being gifted from that same committee.
As of publication, the Jan. 6 committee has refrained from issuing subpoenas to lawmakers, fearing the repercussions of such an extraordinary step. These repercussions stem from uncertainty over whether such a subpoena could be enforced because of the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, which says members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other place” for their words in either House.
In essence, the entire Republican party is using misdirection to protect themselves from accountability, all while ensuring that they can continue their political careers unabated even though they helped in attempting to overthrow the US government. Sickeningly, the die-hard conservative constituents are eating it up. In a telephonic interview from jail, Edward Jacob Lang (one of the insurrectionists who was captured and charged for the attack), said that he was “disappointed” with Mr. Trump for not rallying behind the 6 January prisoners. "It just shows how far we have fallen." Speaking directly to Trump, his next statement is the one that has been repeated most often by the attorneys of those incarcerated. "We are rotting in jail because we stood up for what you told us to stand up for." The level of sorrow and confusion that can be heard is palpable and shows just how much the insurrectionists thought they were doing the right thing.
Anyone who has ever followed politics knows that when the going gets tough, there will always be a fall guy . When listening to the speeches given by Trump, Giuliani, and others on that fateful day, it was apparent that the verbiage used was worded in a very specific fashion. To the untrained ear, their speeches reeked of violent platitudes designed to get people into the capital building to physically stop the electors from doing their jobs. To those who have been through the court system, it was readily apparent that none of those who gave speeches were going to face any kind of serious repercussions. Though filled with innuendo, none of the speeches given had a smoking-gun phrase that would hold up in a court of law as being a direct order to engage. As the examples I have provided show, the GOP is still using this level of trickery to further another goal: state-wide insurrections.
I know this prediction reeks of Chicken Little and “the sky is falling,” and I hope I’m entirely wrong, but there’s too much familiarity here to simply ignore what could happen. The narrative shifting to where those in jail are seen as political prisoners beholden to the whims of liberal, activist judges. These same political prisoners were called “un-American” when all they wanted to do was ensure a fair election. And now the Republican party is being potentially punished by the removal of beloved leaders from upcoming ballots due to the levels of hatred the liberal faction has for those who were merely trying to assert their God-given rights. These talking/brainwashing points easily have the power to be channeled into action by those in the leadership of the GOP, all the way to deadly ends.
If Greene or any other incumbent Republican politician gets removed from the ballot, I could see the phrases “taking action” or “stopping the steal” begin to make the rounds again, leading to images of state capitals being overrun by domestic terrorists all filled with hubris that their actions are not only correct but probably ordained “by God.” It’s for this reason I wrote this article in the first place. America has become warped and our ideologies have all been turned into “might is right” and whoever is the most violent, wins. Democracy doesn’t matter much to half the nation, and neither do our American standards and traditions. What makes all of these American values being thrown by the wayside even worse is that all of these American watermarks are being killed by those who were elected to protect them. And it seems to those people, that power is way more important than any American values.
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