Jeff Sessions. (photo: AP)
Sessions Prosecutes Laughter, We Have to Take to the Streets
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
25 July 17
Several friends of mine were arrested recently and convicted of federal
crimes. Two were sentenced, and a retrial was ordered for the other one.
Their crimes? One laughed during Attorney General Jeff Sessions's
confirmation hearing during a peaceful protest against the nominee. The
others defended her. Seriously.
Desiree Fairooz, Lenny Bianchi, and Tighe Barry, all members of Code Pink,
attended the hearing in January 2017. At one point, Senator Richard Shelby,
a Republican from Sessions's home state of Alabama, said that Sessions's
record of "treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and
well-documented." Fairooz giggled at the absurdity. She said later that it
was "spontaneous. It was an immediate rejection of what I considered an
outright lie or pure ignorance." Fairooz went on to say that when a Capitol
Police officer approached her, she expected to be warned. Instead, she was
taken into custody. Bianchi and Barry were arrested for wearing Ku Klux Klan
outfits and for defending Fairooz.
The government, of course, said that Fairooz "let out a loud burst of
laughter, followed by a second louder burst of laughter." The police, the
government added, "then tried to quietly escort Ms. Fairooz from the room,
but she grew loud and more disruptive, eventually halting the confirmation
hearing." That was nonsense. An eyewitness seated near Fairooz told The New
York Times that Fairooz's laugh was little more than a "reflexive gasp" that
was no louder than a cough. "I would barely call it a laugh," she said.
Still, the Trump administration, in the form of the Sessions Justice
Department, ordered that the three be brought to trial in federal court in
Washington, DC, and in May they were found guilty of federal crimes,
including disorderly conduct and "parading or demonstrating on Capitol
grounds." Both are misdemeanors, but the punishment could have been up to
two years in prison, as well as fines and probation.
In the end, Fairooz's conviction was thrown out, while Bianchi and Barry
received suspended sentences. The Justice Department, though, ordered that
Fairooz be retried. Amazingly, nobody at the DoJ has yet felt compelled to
explain to the American people why their tax money is being spent to
prosecute people for giggling and for exercising their right to protest
peaceably.
But this is the Department of Justice under Sessions. Sessions is ordering
his minions to pursue these inconsequential cases. Worse, he's backtracked
on sentencing reform and mandatory minimums, on prosecuting undocumented
workers, and on expanding the use of private prisons. The dismantling of
Obama-era judicial reforms is well underway.
The future may seem dark, but there are several things that we can do, even
if the road will be rough. First, and I know I sound like a broken record
here, we must demand accountability from our elected officials. As a veteran
of Capitol Hill, I can tell you that members of the House and Senate really
do react to constituent emails and letters, and they're easily influenced on
issues on which they don't have strongly-held feelings.
Second, we have to take to the streets. Mass action attracts the attention
of the media, word spreads quickly on social media, and the next thing you
know, you have an honest-to-God movement on your hands. Get out there and
demonstrate.
Third, and this is tough, but we need to jam the courts. Get arrested. Plead
not guilty. Go to trial. Most charges coming out of civil disobedience are
misdemeanors. There is rarely any jail time. When the courts are
overwhelmed, the authorities often back down and change policy. It has
happened in the past and it can happen again. And I can tell you from
first-hand experience that jail and prison aren't as bad as you may think
they are. (Indeed, I know an 85-year-old member of Code Pink who has been
arrested some 185 times for her activism. She has never spent more than one
night in jail, and she has never been charged with a felony.)
Finally, it may be prudent to focus on change at the state and local level.
I can't imagine Sessions changing his mind on any of these issues out of the
goodness of his heart. But real change can be effected further down on the
food chain. We can change policy through a thousand cuts. A win is a win. As
the great folksinger and activist Pete Seeger used to say, "Take it easy,
but take it."
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
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