Republican State Sen. Ron Rabin, who on Saturday told a pro-Trump crowd in Raleigh that efforts to politically resist the current presidential administration constituted “sedition,” struck a different tone in 2013, saying in an email to “friends and colleagues” that the Obama administration should be “punished ‘to the max'” and stating that “it is time for us to draw a real line in the sand.”
Rabin’s speech Saturday was marked by what he called his “violent opposition” to Trump protesters, according to a report by WRAL. He also questioned “what right” elected officials had to resist Trump, and suggested those who did were guilty of “sedition” and a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
But in an email published in 2013 on the local right wing blog “Fresh Brewed Conservatism,” Rabin, who represents Lee and Harnett counties in the North Carolina Senate, seemed content to call for outright punishment of then-President Obama and his administration over matters including Fast and Furious (the gun thing, not the movies), Benghazi, and others.
“I believe culpability rests at the highest levels of the current administration and these outrageous actions should be punished ‘to the max,'” Rabin wrote. “At most, hearings and commissions can cause temporary embarrassment or discomfort. I believe these events are so egregious as to demand the strongest possible sanctions. Unless we directly address these issues, there will be no redress and we will continue to get more of the same. It is time for us to draw a real line in the sand.”
Here is the full blog post:
For the record, the Rant doesn’t think Rabin’s calls for punishment of a sitting president to be treasonous or seditious, but it does find his comments Saturday interesting “to the max” in light of his resistance to the prior presidential administration’s policies.