News/Commentary

‘Lunacy at its finest’: Jennifer Rubin’s mind-bending hot take on 5th Amd earns her merciless mockery

August 18, 2022 | | Print Article

Fake “conservative” Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post is out with a new column so outrageous that it has critics questioning her sanity.

In the column published Wednesday, the virulently anti-Trump commentator argues that politicians who exercise their constitutional rights should be barred from running for office, particularly the office of the president.

To be fair, she isn’t talking about any constitutional right but rather specifically about the Fifth Amendment, which states that no person or suspect can be forced into testifying against and incriminating themselves.

This amendment is relevant because former President Donald Trump recently exercised it to avoid answering questions posted by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who’s currently trying to build a case against the businessman-politician.

According to Rubin, the fact that the president exercised this right should automatically disqualify him from running for president again in 2024.

“Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in New York’s investigation into his business’s finances. Of course, the defeated former president and alleged mishandler of classified material has every right to avoid self-incrimination, but that doesn’t mean he’s protected from adverse judgment, either from the jury in this civil suit or from voters,” Rubin writes.

“Indeed, taking the Fifth — especially concerning his alleged misconduct related to the attempted coup — should disqualify him from the presidency,” she adds.

She continues by arguing that any congressional Republican who ever exercises the Fifth, particularly as it relates to the ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6th riot, should likewise be disqualified from running for election.

“[S]hould members of Congress implicated in the plot to overturn the 2020 election choose to take the Fifth, they would be setting up a conflict between their self-interest and the interest in upholding and supporting the Constitution. The same goes for Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) should he refuse to answer questions in the inquiry regarding the pressure campaign on election officials in Georgia,” she writes.

To back up her argument, she then shares quotes from Laurence Tribe, a radically far-left “constitutional scholar,” as she calls him, with a disturbing record of disparaging the U.S. Constitution.

Specifically, during then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings in late 2020, he said that the hearings were “perfectly constitutional” but then turned around and trash-talked the Constitution.

“I’m not suggesting it’s unconstitutional to go ahead [with Barrett’s confirmation hearings]. It’s perfectly constitutional,” he first said.

He then added, “But a lot of things that are constitutional are stupid.”

What was that supposed to mean? Better yet, critics wonder, why should someone who thinks so poorly of the Constitution be trusted as a valid source of legal analysis?

See some responses to Rubin’s column below:

Notice the comparisons to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. While she never pleaded the Fifth — though she might as well have, given how elusive her answers were — some of her staff members and associates did plead it.

“Bryan Pagliano, a computer specialist who held a political appointment at the State Department and also worked for the Clinton family. He asserted his Fifth Amendment rights not to testify before at least two congressional committees and in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. He initially did so in the FBI investigation, but was granted immunity by prosecutors,” Politico reported in 2016.

“Two other computer experts, Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton, also took the Fifth in front of a House panel this month, but they worked for a tech contractor hired to handle Clinton’s server.”

Returning to the present, Rubin is also being pilloried for reposting a column from a New York Times writer who argues that — wait for it — “In the Ways That Count, Liz Cheney Won.”

Look:

FYI, Cheney lost her primary election this Tuesday. She lost BIG.

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles