Call Congressman Bennie Thompson “Chairman of Attainder” — the solon who chaired the J6 Committee is developing a knack for the constitutionally interdicted practice. His filing of a bill “to terminate United States Secret Service protection for felons” is an action aimed at only President Trump. The bill is the ‘‘Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated Toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act.’’ We call Mr. Thompson Chairman of Attainder because of his chairmanship of the J6 Committee. Its pursuit of President Trump amounted, in our opinion, to a mockery of the prohibition laid against Congress in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution against attainder. That is, against trying individuals in the legislature. After breaking the prohibition against attainder, he now seeks to strip former presidents convicted of crimes of secret service protection.Set aside, if only for a moment, the spectacle of a lawmaker proposing to snatch protection from a president behind bars. Plus, too, the chutzpah of Mr. Thompson doing so after he suggested that Mr. Trump be prosecuted for insurrection for, in part, endangering others. Now it appears Mr. Thompson wants to give Mr. Trump that treatment. A riot at the Capitol for a possible riot in prison hardly seems an aspiration befitting an American solon.More concerning even than all that is the ascendency of attainder. That is when the government punishes a party without a trial. The Constitution could not be clearer. Article 1 Section 9 ordains that “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” The Framers had enough of those from Parliament and George III. They sought to prevent their own legislatures from evading the courts and punishing persons without due process.The pursuit of Mr. Trump is emerging as a textbook case. Justice Joseph Story, in his “Commentaries on the Constitution,” describes attainder as attaching when “the legislature assumes judicial magistracy, pronouncing upon the guilt of the party without any of the common forms and guards of trial.” It is a “despotic discretion” driven by “political necessity or expediency.” That could describe the work of the J6 committee right down to the ground.Mr. Thompson’s office has issued a statement that his motivation is to assure Americans that “protective status does not translate into special treatment” and that “those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them.” So he is willing to tear up the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012, which was signed by President Obama and mandates that protection for life is owed to all presidents. Now comes Mr. Thompson to gut that law.The Congressman’s effort is especially galling given that Mr. Trump’s engagement with the secret service, whose bills are paid for by Treasury, was at the center of Mr. Thompson’s committee work, which retailed the claim that the former president tried to commandeer control of ‘The Beast’ and direct it to the Capitol. That account was contradicted by the vehicle’s driver, a secret service agent. The J6 committee criminally referred Mr. Trump. The idea that a former president might be denied lawful secret service protection for a felony conviction in a case that was, in the government’s view, outside his presidential duties strikes us as a reckless and mean-spirited proposal. The suggestion that corrections security suffices is belied by anecdotes too lengthy to list. Not everyone needs the shield of the secret service, but all presidents do, in or out of office — or jail.
