J.D. Vance Just Told Us How Trump Will Jail his Enemies

Illustration by Abdelafatah Mukhtar

On Sunday’s edition of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Vice President J.D. Vance was reminded of President Trump’s recent comment that the Illinois Governor should be in jail and asked, “Do you think Gov. Pritzker has committed a crime?”

The story that has rolled out about this interview this week has basically been one of criticizing Vance’s refusal to answer any direct questions he was asked on the program — evading accountability and spinning the best he could — which ultimately led Stephanopoulos to cut the interview short. Surely a journalist can make that call when the subject is definitely untruthful.

While I don’t disagree with his decision, his action became the story, which had a way of distracting from what Vance was really saying in relation to Pritzker. And I want to circle back to that because I fear it’s getting lost.

While the Vice President didn’t answer the question if J.B. Pritzker has committed a crime with a direct yes, his response is more concerning than just a garden variety deflection.

Vance was asked three times by Stephanopoulos if Pritzker had committed a crime.

First reply: “I think Gov. Pritzker has certainly failed to keep the people of Illinois safe.”

Second reply: “I think Gov. Pritzker has allowed a lot of people to be killed in the city of Chicago.”

Third reply: “Governor Pritzker has failed to do his job. He should suffer the consequences. He has violated his fundamental oath of office.”

Set aside for the moment that the National Guard sent into Illinois by Trump are not there to fight crime and are not trained for or constitutionally permitted to conduct domestic law enforcement. They were sent, ostensibly, to protect the operations of ICE in conducting their indiscriminate, warrantless and wildly unconstitutional abductions of both undocumented and US citizens in Chicago — which, arguably, is in direct conflict with any goal of “keeping the people of Illinois safe.”

Stephanopoulos could have taken issue with Vance’s assertion about the role of federal troops here, but he opted to prioritize the accusation by the President that a duly-elected Governor of a state is guilty of a crime and should be jailed by virtue of his opposition to the U.S. military being sent to occupy a city in his state without request or consent.

A fair question, and one worthy of a direct answer.

And most think that Vance didn’t give a direct answer. But he did.

While, in his typical fashion, Vance stumbled between painfully awkward and distastefully smug, his responses were anything but extemporaneous.

This isn’t a guy who didn’t expect this question from Stephanopoulos. It’s clear he’d given the topic some thought, and he offers a specific justification for just how governors who try to stand in the way of Trump’s lawless actions could be charged and possibly jailed, repeating it throughout the exchange.

The repetition indicates this wasn’t just a spur of the moment redirect — and I would argue, the answer is chilling.

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He uses the word ‘failed’ multiple times as he’s pressed for an answer. Failed to keep citizens safe, failed to keep criminals at bay, failed to do his job, and he’d “leave it to the courts” to determine if he’s “violated a crime.” Whatever violating a crime exactly is who knows, but it doesn’t matter as much as Vance’s intent here.

What Vance is asserting is that because crime is occurring in the State of Illinois, Pritzker has failed to uphold his oath of office, and thus should face (undetermined) “consequences.”

This is no accident. While not expressly advocating for Pritzker to be jailed, he’s floating a trial balloon that any duly-elected governor who the President asserts as having failed to execute some duty of his office could be charged with a crime, setting up a pretext for their removal.

Ok, you say, that’s ridiculous — crime occurs in every state, every year, no matter who the governor is. Crime is happening at higher per-capita rates in states with Republican governors and no one is sending in the National Guard or suggesting prison for those executives.

That’s true. And fortunately, we aren’t so much of a dictatorship (yet) that the President can just send a van to pick up the Governor of Illinois and throw him in prison.

But Trump 2.0 has been steadily building a track record for putting forward weak, mendacious charges of criminality or malfeasance against the President’s opponents. His cabinet has swiftly moved to concoct allegations of ineffectiveness or wrongdoing in order to fire military personnel and career civil servants throughout government that could serve as a check against his aims. These removals and firings are barely a blip on the public radar.

The higher-profile retaliations are much the same. From former FBI Director James Comey to New York Attorney General Letitia James to Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, his minions have been — pardon the pun — trumping up dubious charges against anyone he views to be an enemy, a speed bump or a threat.

The winnability of these cases have never mattered to Trump. His string of frivolous lawsuits over the years stretches to the outer reaches of our galaxy. The value is not in the legal conviction of his opponents, but rather in creating an environment where the integrity of those who argue against his lawlessness is in question.

You might remember this as the“I’m rubber, you’re glue” grade-school defense. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.

So now enter J.D. Vance with his repetitive assertions that Governor Pritzker has failed in his duties and violated his oath of office and you can better see that his words were more than innocuous protestations. He seems to know exactly where he’s going with this line of reasoning.

All an administration with an ass-ton of personal criming and a penchant for retaliation needs to do to justify removing a sitting governor it finds problematic is plant the seed that “people are in danger under your leadership; we have a duty and obligation to remove you to prevent further crimes against the people.”

And the same tactic can be recycled for any situation, like, oh, I don’t know … say, failure to “provide a safe, legal voting process.”

But what about immunity, you say.

Yes, governors enjoy qualified immunity. That is, they are generally protected from liability for official actions they take. It allows executives to make reasonable decisions without being bombarded with lawsuits at every turn.

That protection, however, does not extend to conduct that violates established law or the constitutional rights of the citizens. In the State of Illinois, a general provision of the State Constitution states that “A person convicted of a felony, bribery, perjury or any other infamous crime shall be ineligible to hold an office created by this constitution.”

Pretty straightforward, right? A conviction is required for removal. Well, partly. Elected officials can be impeached before an actual conviction takes place. This very thing occurred in Illinois in 2009, when then-Governor Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed for corruption, which he subsequently was criminally convicted of 2011 and sentenced to 14 years in prison … UNTIL President Trump commuted his sentence during his first term in office.

However, in most states, and specifically in Illinois, official misconduct is a crime and can be defined as a public official “intentionally or recklessly failing to perform a duty required by law.”

Who is the arbiter of which conduct rises to the level of intentionally or recklessly? And if, say, an authoritarian-style administration takes it upon themselves to remove an elected official under such a charge, how will that play out? Even emergency rulings by the courts against Trump have so far been ignored and appealed to death, while he continues his gleeful tap dance upon the rule of law.

The only thing standing between his successful overturning of the 2020 election was his last Vice President’s refusal to rubber-stamp it.

And Trump has a very different Vice President now.

Madeline Timmer is a former Republican campaign strategist and fundraiser and is a legislative and budget specialist.