Democrats say the most extraordinary things. Last week, Hillary Clinton joined Washington attorney Marc Elias on his “Defending Democracy” podcast. Elias, you may recall, famously hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS and laundered Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds through his law firm, Perkins Coie, in April 2016 to pay for the creation of the Steele Dossier.
In her typical inflammatory fashion, Clinton said, “[Former President Donald] Trump is like gaga over Putin because Putin does what he would like to do: Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”
“That’s what Trump really wants,” Clinton continued. “And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because, in that world, he only sees strongmen leaders. He sees Putin, he sees Xi, he sees Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after.”
Clinton was simply doing what Democrats always do: accusing their enemies of doing and thinking precisely what they are actually doing and thinking.
Democrats are discovering that weaponizing the law against Trump in order to bleed him dry financially while simultaneously keeping him off the campaign trail is simply not enough. Despite these unprecedented and desperate measures, Trump is still beating President Joe Biden in key battleground states. The unhappy reality is that their lawfare campaign against Trump, relentless as it’s been, isn’t working out quite the way they had anticipated.
As Democrats rack their brains to come up with new and more creative ways to destroy the former president, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has turned his attention to previously unchartered territory: Trump’s personal safety.
As Trump’s trial for making “hush money” payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election gets underway in Manhattan, Thompson introduced a bill designed to strip convicted felons of Secret Service protection, according to Fox News.
In case you’re wondering just how many convicted felons are currently receiving Secret Service protection, the answer is zero. But all that could change in a New York minute if Trump, who is currently facing a total of 88 felony charges, is convicted on at least one.
The proposed legislation, called the “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act” or the “DISGRACED Former Protectees Act (H.R. 8081),” seeks to end Secret Service protection for those “who have been convicted of a federal or state felony that carries a minimum one-year prison term.”
Thompson, who is currently serving his 15th term in Congress, is best remembered for his role as the hyperpartisan and duplicitous chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He released a statement on Friday which said, “Unfortunately, current law doesn’t anticipate how Secret Service protection would impact the felony prison sentence of a protectee—even a former President. … It is regrettable that it has come to this, but this previously unthought-of scenario could become our reality.”
A one-page fact sheet attached to Thompson’s statement notes that Trump’s current legal situation has “created a new exigency that Congress must address to ensure Secret Service protection does not interfere with the criminal judicial process and the administration of justice.”
Thompson states he is working now to avoid the “complications” that might arise between “Secret Service officials and prison authorities at the Federal and State levels” should Trump become incarcerated.
Above all, he is concerned that Trump might receive “special treatment.” Thompson said, “Therefore, it is necessary for us to be prepared and update the law so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment—and that those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them.”
The fact sheet also addresses the bill’s “ex post facto” status (refers to a criminal statute that punishes actions retroactively) and whether it might violate the Constitution. But readers are assured that as long as it can be shown it does not have “an unlawful, punitive purpose, this bill raises no punitive concern.”
It seems to me that the bill does have an unlawful, punitive purpose. In fact, it appears to have a deadly purpose. Considering the number of death threats Trump routinely receives, it would be only a matter of time before an assassination attempt occurrs. But, obsessed with Trump’s removal from the race as Democrats are, perhaps that’s the goal.
You’ve got to hand it to them. They’ve left no stone unturned in their pursuit of the former president. And now, having failed to eliminate Trump once and for all, they’ve begun dancing toward that most forbidden of flames: bodily harm.
Before closing, I must ask Thompson the obvious question. Should this bill pass and Hunter Biden is convicted of a crime that carries a minimum one-year prison term, will he too, lose his Secret Service protection?
And one for the Democrats: At what point does the party let go and let voters decide who the next president will be?
A previous version of this article appeared in the Washington Examiner.
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