It was disorienting to hear that the Trump lawyers were planning on using Julian Bond, a leader in the Southern Student Civil Rights Movement, in their defense of the defeated president’s coup attempt.
Julian Bond is, along with others in SNCC, an American hero.
A warrior in the fight to make America a real democracy.
Trump is an anti-democratic American fascist.
What could the lawyers possibly think the two have in common?
Former president Donald Trump’s lawyers in effect tried to call the late Atlanta civil rights leader Julian Bond as a defense witness. Trump’s attorneys are arguing that Trump should be acquitted of impeachment in the Senate trial partly because of a Supreme Court ruling in an old case involving Julian Bond.
“I’m very surprised, and they must not have a very good defense,” said Bond’s son, Michael Julian Bond, on Monday. “Because my father’s case, and the case I assume is being presented on behalf of the former president, are very, very different… What I see them doing is grasping at straws. My father’s case is very different.”
The year was 1965, and Julian Bond had just been elected, in Atlanta, to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives.
But before Bond was sworn into office, a reporter interviewed him, and asked about his stance on the Vietnam War.
Bond answered that he opposed the war.
In response Georgia state legislators refused to seat him.
Georgia House Speaker James “Sloppy” Floyd accused Bond of encouraging young men to break the law and dodge the draft in order to refuse military service in the Vietnam War.
Bond sued the Georgia House Speaker.
In Bond vs. Floyd, A federal court ruled in favor of Sloppy Jim. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Bond.
And Bond took his seat.
Jamie Raskin, Democratic Congressman and leader of the prosecution, knew Bond and reminded the Trump defense Team that Trump is no Julian Bond.
Truer words were never spoken.
Like many Americans–& probably people all over the world–I am sick.
I am very ashamed of Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley from Missouri. Clearly supported their own careers over showing support for our democracy and our constitution. BV