“I want the truth!” “You can’t handle the truth!” Fans of Rob Reiner’s famous 1992 military thriller A Few Good Men will recall the climactic courtroom scene, in which dogged JAG lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) confronts the powerful Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson), ultimately eliciting Jessep’s confession of his role in the murder of “screw-up” Marine PFC William Santiago.
Kaffee risks everything — his job, his reputation, and his career as a naval officer — to bring justice for Santiago and the two young Marines accused of his murder.
The uncanny parallels of the film are staggering, especially the character of Santiago, when compared with today’s “political prisoners” such as Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump. Griffin met with President Donald Trump in 2019, and was arrested on January 17, 2021, for his participation in the breach of the Capitol on January 6. Denied bail, Griffin sat in a federal prison cell for 19 days.
Where are the heroes, the Kaffees, those willing to take on the establishment, those willing to stand up to those on the seemingly all-powerful Left who threaten to destroy one’s reputation and livelihood and who seemingly cannot be defied or taken down?
Griffin eventually obtained a public defender, Nicholas Smith, and was finally released on Friday, February 5, on the condition he would attend a court hearing scheduled for February 8.
Of course, Griffin’s true crime was refusing to say that no fraud had occurred in the 2020 Presidential election. According to the Associated Press, “U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said Griffin’s behavior and statements suggest he might obstruct justice based on his presence in a riotous crowd outside the U.S. Capitol and insistence that the election was not won by President Joe Biden.”
In his post-arrest interview, Griffin, the Tularosa, New Mexico, county commissioner, said he “drifted” onto the grounds but never “felt like he was breaking the law.” Reaching for a megaphone from a fellow preacher, Griffin led the crowd in prayer, reading from 2 Chronicles 7:14. Griffin noted that he felt like “our voices were being heard.”
Just as Santiago was a dispensable and “deplorable” soldier who supposedly deserved a “CODE-RED,” Griffin, who says he had nothing to do with the violence at the Capitol, supposedly deserves the most stringent application of the law for merely walking on the grounds of the Capitol Building on January 6.
He did not bust windows or doors to enter the building illegally. He did not accost polices officers. He did not damage or destroy public property. Unlike the revolving door for violent criminals of the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots, coupled with the new bail reform in liberal cities, punishment for Capitol protestors has been expedient and severe.
Where Is the Liberty and Justice for All?
Yet even President Biden has defended BLM/Antifa lawbreakers. He has not addressed the unrest in D.C. this past weekend when rioters harassed people dining in restaurants and chanted “If We Don’t Get It, Burn It Down” as they strode through the streets. This apparent lack of concern from the commander-in-chief, who used as his central theme in his inauguration speech a call for national unity, is distressing.
Leftists in America have worked overtime to pass bail reform and to offer sympathy to prisoners for fear they might catch the coronavirus. Where is this determination to win on the conservative side? Where are the Daniel Kaffees, those attorneys eager to pursue justice even in the face of ridicule? Why did it take 19 days for a lawyer to offer to represent Griffin in this clear case of injustice and discrimination?
Now is the time for conservatives to rally harder than ever before, to stand up and support those who are fighting the good fight. As conservative commentator Dennis Prager often reminds us, if you can’t join in the fight, make sure you support those who can. One hundred percent involvement from all conservatives is required to win back the country.
In the case of Couy Griffin, the lack of courage from tenacious legal counselors who are willing to stand against the corrupt justice of the Left is alarming. Freedom, justice, and truth are at stake. We can do better. We must do better.