Election 2020: Another Open Letter to My Congressional Representative, Tim Walberg of the Michigan 7th District
I sent this via Tim Walberg’s feedback form in the evening of January 6th, 2021, while he was part of the joint session of Congress counting the certified Electoral College votes.
I have corresponded before on the topic of recognition of the winner of the presidential election of 2020. While I did not receive appropriate answers to my questions and I considered your actions in supporting the overturning of duly certified state election results as sedition, I am corresponding now to see if your stances have changed in light of the armed insurrection in the nation’s capitol that you helped foment and encourage.
My questions for you as my representative in the US House of Congress:
1. Will you renounce your previous aid and succor to those wishing to overthrow the constitution in light of the armed insurrection that has resulted, and may we have your statement of repentance at having had a part in this?
2. Will you initiate impeachment proceedings against Donald J. Trump over his explicit encouragement of insurrectionists and his refusal to de-escalate the situation in our nation’s capitol?
3. If you will not initiate impeachment proceedings, will you at least register the vote of the 7th District of Michigan in favor of articles of impeachment if articles are drawn up over the malfeasance of Donald J. Trump in any of these aspect: fomenting insurrection, failure to adequately plan to have armed insurrection met with an adequate response, failure to remove the impetus for such armed insurrection carried out because of his falsehoods concerning the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his demonstrated mental unfitness for the office of the presidency, evidenced by his unhinged video from this morning and his reported behavior in treating the Vice President’s refusal to act in favor of Trump’s insurrection as a higher priority than dealing with a suitable response to the ongoing armed insurrection in the capitol, and which mental unfitness puts every one of this nation’s citizens at risk every further moment he retains the powers and privileges of the chief executive of our nation?
4. If you respond in the negative to any of the three questions above, will you at least resign your seat in the House as an honorable expression of your prior seditious acts and your determination to continue in that sedition, following in the tradition established by the majority of the secessionists at the start of the American Civil War in 1861?
As usual, I will also be posting my questions and any responses or lack of response to my blog at http://austringer.net/wp
Sincerely,
Wesley R. Elsberry, Ph.D.
2021-01-07 18:04 EST: No response so far to my message.
2021-01-12 12:05 EST: No response so far to my message. I did link this in my advice to Rep. Kevin Brady that he should resign, too. What did Brady do, besides sign on to the Texas sedition lawsuit? This is the content of Brady’s tweet that I replied to.
Those calling for impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment in response to President Trump’s rhetoric this week are themselves engaging in intemperate and inflammatory language and calling for action that is equally irresponsible and could well incite further violence.
Besides Walberg and Brady’s clear discomfort in being part of a government they oppose, there is the essential cowardice on display here that the violence threatened by seditious domestic terrorists whose potency and ability to act has always been publicly discounted as an issue by the right, suddenly is so overwhelming that we have to capitulate before they do more than kill a few people in an limited insurrection at Capitol Hill. Whatever happened to “Millions for defense, not one damn penny for tribute.”, I wonder? We have staked large fractions of a million million $ into defense each year for decades now, plus more from every level of government into law enforcement; so how is it that we think we are so unprepared to prosecute action against seditionists? When it comes to sedition, I think we just have to accept that seditionists really do repudiate the rule of law our system of government is founded upon, and we must accept that adverse behaviors like the murder they did last week are likely to be part of what they do going forward, too. Failure to actually take steps toward taking down seditionists, though, simply gives them more time to prepare and expands the scope of the damage that they will be capable of when they are confronted. They haven’t launched their Civil War II broadly because they are not yet ready to meet the potential response. It’s best we take up this challenge before they judge themselves prepared to deal with whatever the government can offer in defense. We have an unmatched opportunity here in that the Trump Capitol Hill Insurrection of Jan. 6th did not obtain a Trump 2nd term for him, and now the seditionists have tipped their hand. Add in the incriminating evidence of the totality of messaging on Parler, which while it can’t extend to every seditionist, it is likely to implicate nearly all the leadership of the cells of the sedition. Moving on that quickly, in addition to removing the chief instigator of the rebellion, must be our priorities.
Meanwhile, Brady is ready to surrender, but IMO he had already pledged his allegiance to the sedition, so maybe we don’t really need to be taking his advice. Go do whatever you want to yourself, Brady, and resign while you are at it. Someone who can faithfully carry out that oath you betrayed is surely ready to step in.
2021-01-13 15:41: For completeness, here is Tim Walberg’s boilerplate statement on the 01-06 attacks, dating from 01-07:
January 7, 2021
Press ReleaseWashington, D.C.–Congressman Tim Walberg (MI-07) released the following statement on the Electoral College certification vote:
“A day later, I am still sickened over the unacceptable violence that transpired at the U.S. Capitol. It is not what we stand for as Americans. Every lawbreaker should be held fully accountable for their abhorrent actions.
“For those with legitimate concerns about election integrity, yesterday should have been a time for robust and respectful debate on the House floor. My focus for that forum was a method to provide greater transparency and raise concerns on behalf of my constituents who lack faith in the electoral process. Given these unresolved concerns regarding irregularities and the overstepping of state laws, I announced my position earlier this week to object.
“This vote was never about overturning election results. Safeguarding the ballot box is bigger than one candidate and one election. It was about ensuring free, fair, and legal elections are an unquestionable certainty in the future. Moving forward, we must settle these unanswered constitutional questions in order to prevent future irregularities and restore Americans’ confidence in the process. With this vote complete, we also must ensure a peaceful transition of power in accordance with the Constitution.
“As Americans, we resolve disagreements through civil debate grounded in the law. That is the only successful way of bridging our differences and maintaining the foundations of our republic.”
Walberg’s actions had gone beyond having respectful debate on the House floor. As noted in a previous message to Walberg I wrote, his signature to join with the State of Texas in a lawsuit that, had it achieved its broadest relief, would have discarded my own vote as well as those of all the rest of Walberg’s constituents’ votes, goes for beyond the rhetoric that Walberg lays out here, which is modest and hardly looks objectionable. But this mild-mannered verbal guise wasn’t the totality of Walberg’s statements, nor does it cover the radical aims of Walberg’s documented actions. The inherent failure of Tim Walberg to share the full extent of the part he played in giving the insurrectionists a pretext for sedition, and to show appropriate contrition for having done so, again gives me little hope that Walberg will at this late date do the right thing.
2021-01-20 20:06 EST: I would be remiss if I did not note my receipt today of an actual letter from Tim Walberg. The final two paragraphs appear to be verbatim quotes of material from the earlier statement I quoted above. Walberg does claim to have been disgusted by the violence in the Jan. 6th insurrection. He does not acknowledge any part of having created the fertile ground for insurrection himself.
