​Congress has the power to bar the president and its members who supported the insurrection from continuing in public office and ever holding office again.
 
While Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution outlines the steps to expel a member of Congress, it requires a two-thirds vote, which is a pretty high bar and unrealistic in the current environment. But there is another Constitutional provision that clearly provides an alternative:
 
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment states in pertinent part: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, 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,…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.”
 
Section 3 was originally directed at those who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War. It provides an alternative expulsion mechanism for ridding the federal government of seditionists and insurrectionists. It can be invoked to dump Trump immediately and forever. It can also bar Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, their Senate colleagues and the 137 Representatives who joined in the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate election, from serving in Congress now and in the future. All it takes for each chamber to rid itself of these traitors is a House or Senate resolution passed by a simple majority vote.
 
Allowing these anti-Americans to continue in office is an unacceptable stain on America. They need to be removed from the privileged positions and institutions they have irretrievably tarnished. Moving forward requires that their treasonous behavior is officially denounced as being beyond the pale, and that a clear precedent be established that such conduct will not be tolerated.
 
Losing their positions is a necessary first step to cleanse America of these political pariahs. They violated their oaths to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, whereby they swore to "…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;…” They not only failed to do that; they actively thumbed their noses at it.
 
Some members of this loathsome crew are asserting that they were merely exercising their first amendment rights. No. They incited and abetted an attempt to take down the U.S. government. As Justice Brandeis stated in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in Sugarman v. United States (1919): “…`freedom of speech' does not mean that a man may say whatever he pleases without the possibility of being called to account for it.” it is not only the right, but the constitutional duty of the Congress to banish them.
 
But their punishment should not end with expulsion. Along the way, their nefarious doings also violated numerous federal criminal laws. It can begin with 23 U.S. Code §2384, “Seditious Conspiracy,” that explicitly covers their illegal conduct. The wheels of justice need to grind them all into the political and judicial dust.
 
Dick Hermann
January 12, 2021

​Sedition
 
I never contemplated that “checks and balances” would take the form of the President of the United States inciting a fascist mob to storm the legislative branch. That’s quite a “check” on Congress. However, not a whole lot of “balance.”
 
The tyrant-president did not do this alone. He had plenty of co-conspirators whose words, like those of aspiring autocrat Trump, mattered: Rudy Giuliani, who urged the fanatic rabble to initiate “trial by combat;” Donald Trump, Jr. who revved up the barbarian hordes, warning members of Congress inclined to follow the Constitution and not object to Joe Biden’s electoral vote count that “we’re coming for you;” Rep. Mo Brooks telling the mob it was time to “kick ass;” Sen. Josh Hawley, whose fist pumping on his way into the Capitol was intended to get Trump supporters’ pulses racing; and Sen. Ted Cruz, the oleaginous Trump bootlicker whose lies leading up to the attempted coup aroused the passions of the great unwashed. More on these two craven congressional Quislings below.
 
All of these democracy destroyers merit the full punishments that the law allows. They must be held to account. For the conspirators who fomented insurrection—Trump, Giuliani and Junior, that means indictments and ultimately prison for the many U.S. criminal code provisions they transgressed: seditious conspiracy, insurrection, knowingly and willfully advocating and abetting overthrowing the government by force or violence, inciting a riot, treason and perhaps felony murder. For their congressional colleagues, it should mean expulsion from office under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution.
 
Shakedown
 
Another “perfect” phone call? Reprising his attempted telephone shakedown of Ukraine’s president in which he threatened to withhold desperately needed military equipment unless the foreign leader manufactured evidence against Joe Biden, Donald Trump attempted the same strong-arm tactic on Georgia election officials. This brazen attempt to commit election theft was accompanied by threats of prosecution if the Georgia officials did not illegally flip the Georgia results to Trump. Fortunately for American democracy, they refused.
 
Trump’s Kool-Aid-besotted base probably has not listened to the president’s 62-minute, feverish phone call or read the shocking transcript. Consequently, they will continue to believe that their cult leader is not the criminal mob boss that the rest of America and the world know all too well.
 
Trump must also be held accountable for this seditious act. While the Biden Justice Department will hopefully have its hands full bringing him to justice for inciting his followers to storm Congress, the Georgia Attorney General has no such distraction. Georgia Criminal Code §21-2-604(a)(1) states: “A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.” The penalty is 1-3 years in prison. Another section of the Georgia Criminal Code makes it a felony to conspire to commit election fraud. Our resident despot can’t self-pardon himself out of a state crime.
 
Sherman
 
It’s been 157 years since General William Tecumseh Sherman left Atlanta a charred ruin while burning his way to the sea. Donald Trump left Atlanta intact but charbroiled the Republican Party, losing it both the two Georgia runoffs and the U.S. Senate by his scorched earth demolition trek through Georgia. His lies and bombast about rigged elections and attacks on state Republicans for doing their constitutional duty confused and deterred thousands of Republicans from voting. At the same time, as in 2018, he once again energized Democrats disgusted with his boorish behavior and wicked ways to come out and vote in droves. Malevolence, self-absorption, villainy and ineptitude are never a great combination.
 
Shame
 
The 150 or so congressional Republicans who, even after the Capitol insurrection, continued to deny the will of the American people and opted for fascist autocracy over republican democracy deserve to have their treachery and cowardice memorialized in a Hall of Shame. Come the next several election cycles, these seditious traitors should be marked for a pull-out-all-the-stops effort to defeat them and send them back to the ignominious futures they so richly deserve. Deterring the next autocrat wannabe—Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy (a worthy heir of his 1950s namesake), Stephen Scalise and their disgraceful ilk—from attempting a similar coup d’état in the extremely unfortunate event that one of them comes to power down the road, is crucial. Sadly, we will likely have to wait at least two years to begin the process of cleansing Congress and America of these execrable proto-Fascists.
 
Dick Hermann
January 8, 2021

​Many respectable law firms and individual attorneys declined to represent Donald Trump and his allies in their futile quest to reverse the results of the 2020 election. That left more dubious members of the profession as the only lawyers willing to take on not only a lost cause, but also one reeking of falsehoods. While lost causes are perfectly within the parameters of legitimate legal representation, knowingly advocating lies is not. Doing so prompts sanctions that can, and in this case absolutely should, be applied to the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and the rest.
 
One of the first things drummed into a budding attorney’s head is that s/he is an “officer of the court.” What that means, among other things, is that the attorney has an obligation to promote justice, including an absolute ethical duty to tell judges the truth. As an officer of the court, a lawyer’s duty is to serve the interests of justice, not just those of the client. In the 60-plus Trump attempts to deny the will of the people, truth was not high on these attorneys’ lists.
 
In addition, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, mandates that an attorney represents to the court that the action s/he is bringing is not frivolous and is supported by evidence. These standards were knowingly and serially abused by Trump’s lawyers. The federal courts may impose “an appropriate sanction” on Rule 11 violators. Here’s hoping that they will and that it will be harsh.
 
Most states have similar rules in place for ridiculous lawsuits filed in their courts.
 
Finally, there are the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which have been adopted or adapted by all fifty states and the District of Columbia. A number of the Model Rules apply to the Trump legal team’s attempt to subvert the electoral decision and make a mockery of the judicial process:
 
Rule 3.1: Meritorious Claims & Contentions. A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous,….
 
Rule 3.3: Candor Toward the Tribunal. (a) A lawyer shall not knowingly: (1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer; or…(3) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.
 
Rule 4.1: Truthfulness in Statements to Others (such as the media and public). In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly: (a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person;
 
Rule 8.4: Misconduct: Maintaining The Integrity Of The Profession. It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: (a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct,…(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation; (d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;
 
Either Rudy et al. never read the Model Rules or thought they could get away with ignoring them. They cannot, nor should they. At this writing, complaints have been filed with at least five state bar disciplinary agencies – in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania – accusing as many as 23 different Trump attorneys of either filing “frivolous” lawsuits or engaging in other professional misconduct. Discipline can range up to disbarment, which any Trump attorney who participated in this contemptible attempt at a coup d’etat richly deserves.
 
The vast majority of lawyers are principled individuals who take their responsibilities to society seriously. Unfortunately, a few bad apples like the Trump legal team give the profession a black eye. The way to redemption is to excise them permanently from the ranks of practitioners.
 
Dick Hermann
January 1, 2021