And just as truth must proceed reconciliation, legal accountability and legislative remedies must be imposed to defend our democracy from the next insurrection. Passed in the wake of the Civil War, it was specifically designed to prohibit people who've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution -- and then participated in an insurrection against the United States -- from holding elected or appointed office. And it could be argued that Trump's past and present attempts to monetize the "Big Lie" constitute a conspiracy to defraud the United States. It's true that these criminal statutes are rarely invoked by prosecutors -- but then insurrection attempts rarely occur in America. We need to be at least as determined to defend our democracy as Trump and his flunkies were in trying to destroy it.

Source: CNN January 07, 2022 00:37 UTC