Worth Reading is an occasional feature on revcom.us, featuring links to articles or videos that contain important insights, done on other platforms by people who are not affiliated or working with the revcoms.
This week we draw readers’ attention to an op-ed that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on June 20 titled “The insurrection won’t end until Trump is prosecuted and disqualified from future office.” The piece was authored by Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard; Phillip Allen Lacovara, deputy solicitor general of the United States, and counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor; Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
The op-ed begins by referring to the session of the House January 6 Committee hearings the previous week in which Michael Luttig, a former federal judge and a prominent Republican, was one of the key witnesses. It notes that Luttig “pronounced former President Trump and his allies a ‘clear and present danger’ to American constitutional democracy” and that “Luttig’s verdict should be understood as a plea for Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to proceed toward charging Trump with federal crimes that the public record now amply establishes. Only then will this nation be able to move forward from the ongoing insurrection.” If this is not done, Tribe and his co-authors warn, three things are sure to happen: an attempt by Trump forces to “certify his win whatever the vote” in the 2024 presidential elections; “the use of the military for domestic control”; and pardoning by Trump of all participants in the January 6 insurrection, if he gets back into the White House.
The op-ed authors conclude that “…should Trump get an encore, look to pre-World War II Germany for a mirror. A failed coup in 1923 taught Hitler a better route to dictatorship nine years later. Those who repeat history are doomed to learn it. The hard way.”