Memo To Congress: Ask Eric Holder About Van Jones

Today, beleagured Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to be in front of the House Judiciary Committee to face very tough questions about Operation Fast and Furious from Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Trey Gowdy (R-SC). 

A congressman who sits on the committee and is not an expert on the failed gun-walking scandal should ask Holder a separate but very important question: What is the Justice Department doing about Van Jones?

On December 12^th, just four days after the hearing, the Occupy Wall Street movement is planning to shut down every major port on the west coast of the United States. On December 1^st, Jones tweeted a message in support of this effort and linked to an article that gave the details.

Here is the content of the tweet that Jones sent out on December 1^st:

It’s the 99′s turn, again. Post-encampment phase begins Dec 12^th. RT @occupybot: Occupy to blockade major ports: no.gd/v6TEVu #ows

The article that tweet links to details the plans of OWS on December 12^th:

Occupy movements plan to shut down major ports along the U.S. West Coast and Canada’s Pacific seaboard in a day of action next month, they said Wednesday.In an announcement hours after a two-month-old anti-Wall Street protest camp was evicted in Los Angeles, they said they plan to strike back against the “nationally co-ordinated attack on the Occupy movement.”

Clearly, Jones is calling on the OWS movement to participate in the shutdown of these ports. Doing so would not just disrupt commerce and cost untold sums; it would pose a tremendous national security risk. For this, the Justice Department should explain why it is neither investigating nor charging Jones. Katie Pavlich at Townhall calls what Jones is doing outright treason.

Even if Holder claims that Jones is simply exercising his first amendment right of free speech – which is like saying the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) has the right to block a polling station armed with night sticks – a port shut down appears to be in direct violation of the SAFE Port Act of 2006, which was drafted in response to the Dubai Ports World controversy.

In SEC. 124 of the Act, there is an amendment that was intended to further qualify matters of ‘economic disruption’ so as not to include employee actions:

`In this paragraph, the term `economic disruption’ does not include a work stoppage or other employee-related action not related to terrorism and resulting from an employee-employer dispute.’

Members of OWS who are planning to actively shut down these ports are planning to engage in acts of economic terrorism and are not protected by the exemption just mentioned. By definition, a ‘work stoppage’ is solely employee-related.

In essence, Van Jones, who is still part of an organization – the Center for American Progress – that offers policy advice to the White House, is actively coordinating acts of economic terrorism against the United States.

On December 8^th, in addition to answering questions about Fast and Furious, Eric Holder should have to answer questions about the plans of Jones in particluar and OWS in general, to participate in the violation of the SAFE Port Act on December 12^th.

Informing Holder of OWS’s plans will also take away the element of plausible deniability, which the former seems to have an affinity for.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at benbarrack.com.