American exceptionalism: Patriots like Vindman in MAGA crosshairs for telling the truth | Opinion

Five years ago, during Donald Trump’s first impeachment hearing, Soviet Union refugee and White House military advisor Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman compared his testifying against Donald Trump to Russians protesting against Vladimir Putin. Dramatically addressing his dead father, Vindman assured him that he would be fine. “This is the United States of America, not Russia. . . . Here right matters.” Last month’s presidential election attests that it doesn’t. In a Barrabus moment for the nation, a plurality of the American electorate chose the insurrectionist over the mixed-race woman.

Suddenly, Alexander Vindman faces not only Trump’s improbable return to the White House, but also the all-too-real prospect of the re-elected president’s retribution for the ex-colonel’s damning testimony. Given that Donald Trump’s favorite Bible passage is “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” there is every expectation that Trump’s second term will be a festival of revenge against all those who in any way had opposed him and his policies. Trump had said as much during the campaign.

One of his chief targets is the Jan. 6 committee which had not only used testimony of Trump’s own officials to shred his claim of a stolen election but had finally moved Merrick Garland to hold Trump accountable for the crimes he had committed in trying to overturn an election, including his incitement of an insurrection on Jan. 6. For daring to oppose him, Trump threatened to jail the committee members as a bloc. Even the two Republicans on the committee, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who had already paid the price of being ostracized by their own party. No matter. Both had further incensed Trump by campaigning for Kamala Harris. Cheney had even written a book laying out in devastating detail exactly how Trump had betrayed his oath to the Constitution as no other president before him had done.

As for his foot soldiers in the Jan. 6 uprising, Trump has sent clear signals that he will “most likely” pardon them. That is how justice works down the rabbit hole.

Then there was the FBI, who, as Trump put it, dared “to invade my home.” Yes, to carry out a warrant to retrieve classified materials which Trump had unlawfully taken with him, then obstructed efforts of the National Archives to reclaim them. Christopher Wray, the FBI director, had to go. Even though Wray had two more years on his 10-year appointment, Trump nominated as his replacement a sycophant who had published an enemies’ list, which included Christopher Wray. Wray quickly submitted his resignation, saying he wanted to spare the bureau any further controversy. A classic case of what Timothy Snyder calls “Obeying in Advance” with would-be tyrants.

Elon Musk, who, since bailing out Trump’s campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars (thanks, Mitch), has assumed the role of Trump’s alter ego, threatens to bring the full weight of the law for treason upon Vindman, on the fabricated charge of his being in the pay of Ukrainian oligarchs. Musk, like Trump, has clear autocratic aspirations. Like his new patron, Musk cannot abide criticism, much less opposition, and will resort to anything to crush it. As co-chair of the para-Constitutional Office of Efficiency which Trump has created as a thank-you to his financial savior, the mercurial Musk has a broad mandate to co-ordinate the kind of retaliation upon those who stand in the way of “Make America Great Again.”

President Biden is being urged to issue preemptive pardons to protect all those like Vindman and the Jan. 6 committee from having to suffer the harassment and legal expenses that all the objects of Trump’s revenge would have to endure. Biden had already taken such a preemptive move, not without considerable criticism, much of it from his own party, to protect his son, Hunter, from any further insidious efforts of a Trump administration to punish Biden’s son even more terribly than they have already inappropriately done.

Americans have prided themselves on being an exceptional nation. Nothing can be more exceptional than a country that allows a man to escape justice by electing him president, in which capacity he can prosecute people for crimes which they did not commit. Only in Trump’s America.

Robert Emmett Curran is a Professor of History Emeritus from Georgetown University who lives in Richmond.

This story was originally published December 16, 2024 at 2:31 PM.