Last Monday night, the Trump impeachment and removal advocate US Air Force Major John Watson was placed into “pretrial confinement” by the US Air Force. He was not formally charged with any crime during or after his arrest but was seized right after he said the following on CNN:
“What is happening with President Trump is not normal… he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to all of us. I feel like, unfortunately, many of us have gotten used to this and we’ve normalized his conduct, and we think that there’s nothing we can do about it. One of the reasons I chose the pseudonym ‘Just Nobody’ is to underscore that you do not have to be somebody special to take action and reject this government. We can all do something about what’s happening in our county and I want to just inspire people …I believe we can defeat this government if we just take a stand.”
Major Watson, previously arrested for standing on the steps of the US Capitol with a sign reading “Impeach, Convict, Remove,” went on CNN with full knowledge that he faces likely Court Martial and the loss of salary and benefits under Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 88, which criminalizes “contemptuous words against the president, vice president, Congress and other top officials.” As he told CNN’s Erin Burnett:
“nothing that is worth doing is something that you can do for free, Everything that is worthwhile is going to cost something. It’s going to be hard. It requires sacrifice. We are in an incredibly challenging time and in order for us to get out of this situation we all have to have courage…If I don’t take action, if I don’t sacrifice something, it’s just words, and words are easy to ignore. If I don’t put myself out there in a big way, it’s just noise, and there’s plenty of noise…We can change what’s happening in our country if we are willing to pay a price for it.”