After four years of the most tyrannical administration in American history, President Donald Trump faces a gargantuan task. He must move quickly to right the grievous wrongs perpetuated by former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.
Of course, not even Trump, with his legendary work ethic, has enough hours in a day to achieve this immediately. But he will get there, for no American president has ever understood persecution better than he does. And he has historical examples to guide him.
To illustrate both the urgency of Trump’s task and the depth of the Biden DOJ’s depravity, consider, for instance, the contents of a Jan. 14 letter to the then-incoming president introducing “Petitions for Pardon of 21 Peaceful Pro-Life Advocates.”
The letter originated with the Thomas More Society, which has characterized itself as a “national public interest law firm defending life, family, and freedom.”
“We represent peaceful pro-life Americans, some of whom were unjustly imprisoned and others unjustly convicted by the Biden Department of Justice for demonstrating at abortion facilities,” the letter read, adding that those peaceful demonstrators “are richly deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”
Trump, of course, has already kept his campaign promises by issuing many high-profile pardons.
On Monday, for instance, he pardoned more than 1,500 Americans persecuted and imprisoned by the diabolical Biden DOJ in connection with the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump fulfilled a campaign pledge to Libertarians when he pardoned Ross Ulbricht. According to the libertarian news magazine and website Reason, Ulbricht incurred the wrath of President Barack Obama’s DOJ after “creating the Silk Road, a dark web drug marketplace that facilitated $1.2 billion in bitcoin-denominated transactions.”
The president agreed with the libertarians and found Ulbricht’s case compelling.
Should Trump immediately prioritize pro-life policies?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
“The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!” the president wrote Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social.
In other words, we have a president very much aware of the injustices perpetuated against Americans by their own government.
Needless to say, 21 peaceful-yet-incarcerated pro-life demonstrators fit that description.
According to the Thomas More Society’s letter to Trump, the Biden DOJ “viciously pursued pro-life Americans” and justified the pursuit by citing, among other things, “the Ku Klux Klan Act’s ‘Conspiracy Against Rights’ felony provisions (18 U.S.C. § 241).”
Yes, you read that correctly. Biden’s thugs used the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act in order to extract felony charges from cases involving peaceful civil disobedience, traditionally regarded as a “minor misdemeanor,” as the Thomas More Society put it.
And what about the victims of Biden’s lawlessness? They “include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest.”
Thus, Steve Crampton, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel, urged Trump to act.
“President Trump has the chance to remedy the harm done to them and their families, deliver on his campaign promises, and repair trust in our constitutional order,” Crampton said in a statement on the Thomas More Society’s website.
Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation Peter Breen echoed Crampton’s plea.
“President Trump has a golden opportunity to not only stop the lawfare against peaceful pro-lifers, but to also undo some of the unprecedented damage of the Biden administration,” Breen said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Fox News Digital, Crampton elaborated on what he hoped to see from the president.
“We hope by President Trump’s actions here that he will restore some sanity and rule of law to the approach of the Department of Justice and the FBI, but also help move this culture back toward a culture of life rather than one of death,” Crampton said. “This small act on his part would, in fact, serve to kind of ignite a momentous movement toward restoring a respect for life in this nation that’s so desperately needed.”
The Thomas More Society’s plea on behalf of 21 persecuted pro-life activists raised two important questions.
First, should Trump pardon those individuals? And second, should he do so for the purpose of helping to “move this culture” in a pro-life direction?
The first question amounts to a slam-dunk. In fact, the Biden DOJ violated so many people’s rights that Trump should pardon everyone convicted in politically-charged cases. Simple justice demands it.
The second question, however, presents complications, for it has both moral and tactical aspects.
In both respects, abortion has only one parallel in American history: chattel slavery.
From the 1830s onward, abolitionists — those who called for slavery’s immediate eradication — had the obvious moral high ground. But they also failed to win elections and in at least one case, the election of 1844, voted in large and decisive numbers for a third-party candidate in swing-state New York, thereby helping to elect an expansionist, pro-slavery president whose policies led directly to the Mexican War and renewed efforts to push slavery westward.
In other words, the moral high ground alone does not always lead to victory. Constitutional self-government demands both persuasion and, in the interim, tactical prudence.
“[T]he revolution in public opinion which this case requires, is not to be expected in a day, or perhaps in an age. but time, which outlives all things, will outlive this evil also,” Thomas Jefferson wrote of slavery in 1826.
Likewise, in an 1862 letter President Abraham Lincoln explained that he fought the then-ongoing Civil War to restore the Union. He did not view the war as a crusade to destroy slavery.
Nonetheless, Lincoln concluded the letter with an important caveat.
“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free,” Lincoln wrote.
In short, Jefferson and Lincoln provided Trump with a model.
Consistent with his official powers, Trump must pardon those 21 pro-life victims of Biden’s DOJ. Again, the president understands persecution.
Furthermore, without threatening his electoral mandate (tactical prudence), he should tell the truth about abortion. After all, Lincoln told the truth about slavery.
Changing Americans’ minds about abortion, as Jefferson wrote of slavery, may be the work of generations. But we must take part in that arduous work, and a persecuted president at the peak of his popularity would make for a formidable ally.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
