By Stephen Macaulay
Part of the pushback on the televised January 6 hearing from people like Lindsey Graham is that it is “political,” having to do more with the midterm elections than anything else.
Let’s consider the absurdity of that.
- The attack on the Capitol and the apparent conspiracy leading up to it was meant to undermine the Constitution of the United States. Definitionally, that is a political document. The objective of the attack was to prevent the transfer of power from the man who lost the election — a political activity — to the man who had won the election. So how could this not be political?
- The attack on the Capitol took place on January 6, 2021. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol was established on July 1, 2021. The midterm elections will be conducted on November 8, 2022. Were it not for the attack on the Capitol there would be no Select Committee. The Committee didn’t establish the timeline. “But wait!” some Grahamist might say. “This televising of the Committee is sensationalism.” Were it not for the attack on the Capitol there would have been, as Mark Meadows apparently said when informed by an attorney that there was nothing to change the outcome of the election, “no there there.”
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Former attorney general William Barr carried Trump’s water from Valentine’s Day 2019 to nearly the day he resigned, December 23, 2020. He was said to have undermined the understanding of the Mueller Report, thereby, arguably, providing substance to Trump’s repeated claims of it being a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” So because of Barr, there were many people who thought: “Gee, there was going to be a report showing collusion with the Russians and all manner of other bad things, but it turns out that there was no there there.” Which led to many of those same people believing what has come to be known as the “Big Lie.”
Barr literally called “bullshit” on Trump’s election-being-stolen claim.
Is it any more believable because Barr was once the water boy?
Or is this simply a sign that any reasonable person would recognize that it was, and is, bullshit?
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She is the “former Senior Advisor to the President of the United States.”
Her qualification for the job? Probably not the series of failed businesses she ran. It was nothing more than DNA.
Ivanka Trump said to the Committee that she heard what Barr said and she believed it. Clutch those pearls from Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry.
Let’s face it: No one thought she was up for being the senior advisor to the President, so whatever she said when she was was largely discounted. (Sort of like the line of clothes and shoes she had produced in China.)
The argument goes: to believe Barr is to disbelieve her dad.
Does that really matter?
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“As you will see, Representative [Scott] Perry [Republican representing Pennsylvania’s 10th] contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential Pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought Presidential Pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.”—Vice-chair Liz Cheney
“A pardon is the use of executive power that exempts the individual to whom it was given from punishment. The president's pardon power is based on Article II of the Constitution which says, “…he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”—Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
Someone who has done nothing wrong will not ask for a pardon. What would be the point?
So obviously Perry and some of his colleagues knew full well that they did something wrong.
They are admitting it by their acts.
And it is not merely wrong, but illegal.
Not because of what Cheney or anyone else says. But because what they did.
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The president-elect says this:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
The vice president-elect says this:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."
Maybe Trump simply didn’t think that he needed to defend the Constitution against “enemies, foreign and domestic.” He didn’t swear to it.
"Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the U.S. government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security.
“President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Vice President Pence did each of those things.”—Vice chair Liz Cheney
Perhaps if Congress does anything it ought to make the president-elect swear the same oath as the vice president.
Clearly Trump didn’t see protecting the Capitol in his job description.
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“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”—Vice chair Liz Cheney