Greene, Gosar, Biggs, Cawthorn, Finchem, Mastriano All Insurrectionists
Would you be off the hook if you punched me in the nose and later said you were sorry? Or if you planned and joined in the Jan. 6, 2021, failed insurrection on the Capitol, would you be excused if you said you really, really hoped it would be peaceful?
That’s essentially the rubbish of a defense being offered by four far right wing Republican members of congress and two far right wing state Republican senators from Arizona and Pennsylvania. They all deny they were involved in the planning or the actual mob assault, although plenty of facts show otherwise. The group is a roll call of five of the craziest and most dangerous officials in the nation, including the members of congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, both of Arizona and Matt Cawthorn of North Carolina; Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem, who also is a candidate for Arizona attorney general; and Pennsylvania State Rep. Doug Mastriano, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
Greene, Gosar, Biggs, Finchem, Mastriano and Cawthorn are named in a suit filed by Free Speech For People, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal advocacy organization. The groups says the shameful, sorry lot of them should all be barred from office because they violated Section Three of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It’s not complicated, the amendment requires that anybody who attempts, plans or joins in insurrection against the government will never be allowed to run for a government post.
The legal actions were filed in March against Mastriano; in April against Gosar, Biggs, Finchem and Greene; and in January against Cawthorn.
The legal action is part of a larger movement to hold elected officials accountable to the constitutional requirements for running for office and bar insurrectionists from appearing on any future ballot. Free Speech For People also has sent letters to every Secretary of State, urging them to bar trump from the ballot under the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause.
Most recently, a federal judge refused Greene’s request to dismiss the suit. A different federal judge previously agreed that Cawthorn should not be kicked out of government, although the case will certainly be appealed.
Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause, provides: “No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress. . . who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress . . . 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.”
The amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War to keep southern supporters of the war from running for office and again fomenting rebellion.
MASTRIANO
First, a bit about Mastriano. An Army veteran, state senator since 2019 and a candidate for the Republican primary for governor, Mastriano tried repeatedly to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania and frequently made the false claim that trump lost because of widespread election fraud.
Mastriano called on the Pennsylvania legislature to overturn state law and authorize the appointment of its own electors to the Electoral College. When the efforts failed, Mastriano organized transportation from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. for Trump’s demonstration at the Ellipse, which led to the attack on the Capitol.
Videos and photographs show Mastriano riding a golf cart and arriving at the Capitol building as insurrectionists breached police barricades and assaulted Capitol police officers to enter the building. Mastriano has admitted to his involvement at the events but denied supporting violence.
“Mastriano is an experienced military veteran who has studied and written on ‘hybrid warfare’ strategies that relies on ‘ambiguity’ and disinformation to create instability,” the lawsuit claims. “Many of these strategies were used during the lead-up to and the execution of the January 6 insurrection.”
GOSAR, BIGGS, FINCHEM
Organizers of the pre-attack demonstration at the Capitol said Gosar offered them a “blanket pardon” in connection with unrelated criminal investigations, “encouraging what would no doubt be an illegal act of violence.”
The three defendants continually claimed the presidential election was stolen as they sought to have Congress decertify the election and name new electors sympathetic to trump. The trio also defended the behavior of the rioters and said the attacks were carried out by “antifa” infiltrators.
At one point, Finchem advanced with the crowd near the steps of the Capitol as it was being overrun, took a picture, and tweeted: “What happens when the People feel they have been ignored, and congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud. #stopthesteal.” Finchem later attempted to downplay his involvement in the attack.
Prior to the Jan. 6 riot, Gosar tweeted about a “great meeting” he had with trump, trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and presidential lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The tweet was also sent to “my homies,” Biggs, Brooks and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
“President is resolute,” Gosar tweeted. “We will not accept disenfranchisement of 80 million who cast a vote for @POTUS. This sedition will be stopped.”
The lawsuit cites news stories and other public acts to show that Gosar and Biggs helped facilitate the insurrection, before, during, and after Jan. 6, 2021.
“Specifically, the evidence shows that they either helped to plan the attack on January 6, or alternatively helped to plan the pre-attack demonstration and/or march on the Capitol with knowledge that it was substantially likely to lead to the attack, and otherwise voluntarily aided the insurrection,” according to the lawsuit.
GREENE, CAWTHORN
“Jan. 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants,” Greene said during a radio program in October. Earlier this year, she said she opposes all forms of political violence.
In the weeks leading up to the Capitol assault, Greene said publicly that violence might be necessary to keep trump in power, calling the date “our 1776 moment,” a codeword used by violent extremists to refer to an attack on government buildings.
Greene also said that Biden is “guilty of treason. It’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., also a fierce trumper, who also has repeatedly claimed the election was stolen, also referred to “our 1776 moment” shortly before the Capitol protest turned violent. He later removed the comment from his Instagram account and said it had been “misinterpreted as a consent of the insurrection.”
Hice and Greene were among the members of Georgia’s congressional delegation who attempted during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to block the state’s electoral votes from being cast for Biden. At the same time the proceedings were getting underway, trump supporters rallied on Capitol grounds and later attacked.
“I was just calling people to stand up as legislators with the tools we have to stand up for freedom and fair elections. I certainly don’t want to be accused of inciting people to take up arms,” Hice said.
In the leadup to the insurrection, Cawthorn encouraged his followers to “lightly threaten” their representatives if they didn’t validate trump’s claims of election fraud. Cawthorn showed up at the “Stop the Steal” rally, held just hours before the riot, where he blasted Republicans for “not fighting” hard enough. When the rioters had finally made their way inside the House chamber, Cawthorn tweeted, “the battle is on the house floor.”
Chief Judge Richard Myers, who was appointed by trump in 2019, issued an injunction on March 4 blocking the North Carolina State Board of Elections from hearing Cawthorn’s challenge on the grounds that an 1872 law which provided amnesty to ex-Confederates also applied to Cawthorn. Free Speech for People has filed an expedited appeal. Judge Myers has been a member of the conservative, Federalist Society since 2004, the National Rifle Association since 2010 and the Christian Legal Society since 2004, of which he serves as a faculty advisor.
On April 19, Judge Amy Totenberg ruled against Greene’s request for an injunction because Greene had failed “to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.”
Greene has a long, documented history of making violent and inflammatory comments. Her Twitter account was suspended for 12 hours for violating its rules following the Capitol riot and again for violating Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policies as she tweeted lies about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.”
More recently, Greene filed a complaint with the Capitol Police after the late-night television show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel mocked her in a monologue. Greene was angry after Kimmel mentioned Greene’s verbal attacks toward three Republican senators who voted to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
“Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?” said Kimmel.
In 2018 and 2019, she indicated support for executing leading Democrats. In January 2019, Greene “liked” a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. She also liked posts that talked about executing FBI agents, who she regarded as part of the “deep state” working against trump. In April 2018, Greene posted on Facebook, regarding President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, “Now do we get to hang them? Meaning H &O???,” referring to Obama and Hillary Clinton. She has since claimed that she did not post the Facebook likes.