Professional leftist activist Jesse Jackson felt the need to deliver a few important messages following the stunning upset victory of Donald Trump. One piece of advice Jackson directed at President Barack Obama himself, who the reverend urged to grant a pardon to Hillary Clinton for any potential illegal action she took regarding her unapproved, unsecured private email server. Jackson also had a message for all those protesting the fair, democratic election of Trump: keep fighting against “hate.”
Jackson offered his counsel during a daylong celebration of him at the University of Michigan on Wednesday. As the Detroit Free Press notes, while he was careful not to admit that Clinton had actually broken the law, Jackson said that, nonetheless, Obama should go ahead and issue a blanket pardon for the failed presidential candidate.
“It would be a monumental moral mistake to pursue the indictment of Hillary Clinton,” Jackson said. “President Ford said we don’t need him for trophy. We need to move on. President Nixon wasn’t convicted of a crime. He didn’t apply for a pardon. (Ford) did it because he thought it would be best for the country. Hillary Clinton has not been tried, but there are those who want to drag her for the next three years. It will not stop until they find a reason to put her in jail. That would be a travesty.”
As for all his fellow leftist activists — particularly those participating in the protests against Trump, some of which have devolved into violence and outright rioting — Jackson said it is essential that they continue to keep up the “battle” against “hate.”
Jackson said the protests are “born out of fear … that the Klan will ride again … that violence (against minorities) is coming back.” He also suggested that Trump only won because of fear, saying, “voters voted for fear,” but adding, “I think hope will defeat hate, but it’s a battle.”
“Students, don’t let them take your hope,” said Jackson. “Deep water doesn’t drown you. You drown because you stop kicking. There is a tug of war for the soul of America. Do we want to be an aristocracy or a democracy? To be silent is to betray your conscience. You must not be silent in the face of violation of human rights.”
All the protests, said Jackson, are ultimately Trump’s fault and now he is responsible for putting out the fire he supposedly set.
“The one who set the field afire must be the one to put it out,” Jackson, who himself is infamous for inflaming racial tension, told the Detroit Free Press in an interview Wednesday. “He had the option to pour water on it (the dry field) and let it grow. He didn’t do that — he chose to light it on fire. One of my concerns is that we see the division in America now because of that. We see classmates, roommates in a conflict over the way the campaign turned out. He knows Mexicans didn’t take jobs from us. It was the corporations. He knows you can’t deport 15 million (immigrants). It’s not just about the adults, but also about the children who were born here, grew up here and go to school here.”
On the campaign trail, Trump said if elected he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s use of the private email server. Many, however, have dismissed the threat as trumped up campaign rhetoric. After the election, Trump surrogate former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani discussed the possibility to ABC News, calling it a “tough question.”
“As a lawyer, I hate to use the ‘on the one hand, but the other,’ but on the one hand, you don’t want to disrupt the nation with what might look like a vindictive prosecution, even though it might not be,” said Giuliani. “On the other hand, you want equal justice under the law, and if she has violated the law ― you know, the FBI never completed the [Clinton] Foundation investigation. That’s, as far as I know, that’s still an ongoing investigation. They completed the email investigation, but not the Foundation investigation.”
“I guess the next attorney general is going to have to figure that out” he said. “I don’t know if that will be me or not, but the next attorney general would have to figure that out.”