Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) late Friday said the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is an effort by the Trump administration to intimidate its critics and silent dissent.
Kinzinger, a member of the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, also said he wasn’t worried that Trump might come after him. Kinzinger and other members of the panel received pre-emptive pardons from President Biden before he left office.
Asked if he thought the Department of Justice really wanted to convict Comey, who has long been at odds with Trump, Kinzinger said he didn’t believe that was the real point.
“I’m sure they’d love to get a conviction, but this is all about the inconvenience, this is all about intimidation,” he said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
He argued the case against Comey isn’t strong, but that it will force Comey to hire lawyers and inconvenience him.
“I like to remind people the Republican Party used to be the party that campaigned against frivolous lawsuits, and now the president is basically a practitioner of frivolous lawsuits,” he added.
More importantly, Kinzinger said, is that it could silence other critics of Trump.
“It’s a message he is sending to anybody else, that this could happen to you, too,” he said. “So what ends up happening? People go quiet. You see corporations go quiet. Salute and get along.”
Kinzinger also acknowledged that if this is a strategy of Trump’s it has been successful.
A number of corporations have sent various signals indicating they are willing to shift their own policies to gain Trump’s favor.
“It’s successful, but in the long run I think it’s very much going to be a stain on our history,” the former Illinois GOP lawmaker said.
Kinzinger himself said he doesn’t worry about being targeted by Trump, and that if the president does go after him “if will just make me even more effective.”
“The thing that people need to understand is that when you back down, he wins,” Kinzinger said.
“Secondarily when you stand up and confront him, he tends to back down. Standing up is contagious.”
As an example, Kinzinger noted ABC’s decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel back to his late-night perch.
“You see with Jimmy Kimmel when there’s a major push back, it’s successful and it builds momentum,” he said.
Source: The Hill - News
