The big fry
Seth Abramson says enough with the low-rank insurrectionists, what about the people with real power?
Thus far, over 320 Trumpists have been arrested for their actions on January 6, 2021, and the DOJ says that more than 100 additional arrests are coming. But what many of us are most anxiously awaiting is not more arrests of lower-middle-class and middle-class Donald Trump supporters—though the massive video archive published by ProPublica confirms that many of these richly deserve indictment and incarceration—but rather the as-yet unaccountable elites who orchestrated the events of January 6.
For instance, we’ve yet to see what sort of accountability, legal or professional, awaits politicians like Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), all of whom helped strategize and/or incite the events of January 6.
He names more people who should be answering questions, including Roger Stone and Alex Jones. (Roger Stone has a pardon, but maybe that doesn’t mean he can’t be interviewed? I should know, but I don’t.)
And of course America still waits eagerly for the first signs of justice for the Trumps themselves, along with their closest allies and advisers, a list of insurrection-adjacent figures that includes Trump himself, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump, Trump Jr. girlfriend and Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle, Katrina Pierson, Corey Lewandowski, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Lindell, Sidney Powell, and Michael Flynn. We know, by and large, what these men and women did on and before January 6; what we don’t know is why the FBI has apparently yet to speak with any of them or seize and search their electronic devices. We don’t know why we are told to cheer the arrests of Trumpist peons even as the powerful, wealthy, and/or influential people who guided their conduct are ignored by federal law enforcement.
I bet we can have a pretty good guess though.
Stone was pardoned for his actions in the Mueller probe. That actually limits his ability to plead the fifth in regard to the probe, since there’s no danger of incriminating himself. It has no bearing, though, on the insurrection case–he could still be prosecuted for that.
My (uninformed) guess is that the prosecutors are starting with the small fry, and using those cases to build cases against the ringleaders.