JD Vance Demands DOJ Go After Washington Post Writer Who Called For ‘Resistance’ Against Trump ‘Dictatorship’

Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) demanded that the Department of Justice investigate a Washington Post journalist who called for “resistance” should former President Donald Trump retake the White House in 2024.

Vance sent a letter this week to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken claiming an op-ed written by editor-at-large Robert Kagan suggested “open rebellion” in order to prevent a Trump “dictatorship.”

Kagan’s piece laid out how “resistance could come from the governors of predominantly Democratic states such as California and New York through a form of nullification. States with Democratic governors and statehouses could refuse to recognize the authority of a tyrannical federal government.” He added, “That is always an option in our federal system.”

Trump shared the article on social media, while some MAGA Republicans claimed the article was “obviously green-lighting assassination” of the former president.

Vance’s letter began:

I wish to address to your attention a recent opinion piece published in the pages of a widely- circulated American newspaper. Based on my review of public charging documents that the Department of Justice has filed in courts of law, I suspect that one or both of you might characterize this article as an invitation to “insurrection,” a manifestation of criminal “conspiracy,” or an attempt to bring about civil war.

After declaring that the odds of an American dictatorship in the next few years are “pretty good” and that “[t]hose who hope to be saved [from dictatorship] by a U.S. military devoted to the protection of the Constitution are living in a fantasyland,” writer Robert Kagan—an editor at large at The Washington Post—proceeded to the conclusion that a second Trump presidency would justify secession, treason, and (likely) political violence.

Vance asked to be notified by Jan. 6, 2024, if the DOJ would be looking into the matter. Vance also questioned whether Kagan’s wife, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, would have her security clearance reevaluated, “in light of her husband’s call for rebellion against the United States.”

Read Vance’s letter here.