There are some things in our politics that make me more nervous than Louie Gohmert around a thesaurus. One is the nature of political prosecutions, and the other is prosecutors who ply the media with tales of dark doings and veiled cabals. That’s because I remember the bad old days of COINTELPRO, and the various illegitimate prosecutions contained in the backlash against the civil rights movement, and because I know how federal prosecutors can bully and cajole people out of a proper legal defense. It’s also because I grew up in a home where the Catholic conspiracy theories were alive and well. (I spent one rainy weekend when I was in high school reading John Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason at my father’s recommendation. I came away from it with an unquenchable sweet-tooth for right-wing political paranoia.) So, when Michael Sherwin, until recently the supervisor of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the events of January 6, popped up on 60 Minutes on Sunday night to talk about what his investigation has uncovered so far, I have to admit that certain bells went off in my head.
