I say this to my Republican colleagues … your dishonor will remain

Everyone, not just never Trumpers, Democrats, liberals and RINOs, should be watching and paying close attention to the House Select Committee’s public hearings on its January 6 investigation findings. It’s an unprecedented moment in history, an assault on our very Constitution. Every U.S. citizen should be insistent on getting to the truth of what happened that dark day and in the weeks before and since. Based on reaction, it’s clear that those who disagree, including Donald J. Trump, are still relying on little but bluster and bull**it to hide said truth.

Donald Trump remains hopelessly locked into character as Donald Trump, still waxing adolescently on the Big Lie and throwing under the bus those nearest and dearest with the temerity to refute him, calling his former attorney general and premier toady Bill Barr, who testified to the committee that Trump’s claims of election fraud were baseless and without merit, “weak and frightened” and posting on his social media platform of his daughter, Ivanka, who testified that she accepted Barr’s assessment, that she was “only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).”

On Fox, which did not air the hearing, Tucker Carlson explained that the it was propaganda from the ruling class, yet another lecture about January 6.

“They are lying,” he said, “and we are not going to help them do it.”

Over on Newsmax, which did air much of the hearing, Rob Schmitt brushed it off, saying, “we saw a lot worse in the summer of 2020, spurred on by comments from the other side of the aisle, that burned major cities in this country down. Where’s the hearing on that? Well they don’t have that hearing, because they don’t care about your life, where you live.”

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Trump loyalist and staunch proponent of the Big Lie who has refused to answer a subpoena to testify as to his alleged involvement in plotting a coup attempt, sent out a series of Tweets regarding the hearing:

“The primetime political theater is an attempt to distract from [real] issues and avoid addressing the many crises created under Joe Biden,” he wrote. “When’s the primetime hearing on record crime in Democrat-run cities? … When’s the primetime hearing on record high grocery prices? … When’s the primetime hearing on Democrats attacking parental rights at school board meetings? … When’s the primetime hearing on threats against Supreme Court Justices and their families? … Where’s the primetime hearing on President Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal?”

“Well, sadly, last night was no different than what we have seen before,” U.S Representative Jim Banks (R-Indiana) wrote on Friday. “It was a political exercise, truly a political witch-hunt that was focused more on the Democrats’ obsession with Donald Trump than anything at all about Capitol security or investigating the events that led up to January 6, so we can prevent something like that from ever happening again.

“What you saw was a series of selectively edited interviews. They recorded all of these interviews, but they didn’t present the American people with any evidence that actually shows that Donald Trump directed the attack on the Capitol. They didn’t present it because they don’t have it.

“I mean, I can’t get over the fact that, in the president’s speech that day at the White House, he told his supporters to go down to the Capitol and patriotically and peacefully make your voice heard. And there’s never been any evidence brought forward that shows that he did anything other than that. He didn’t direct the attack. He didn’t tell people to attack the Capitol, to break into the Capitol, cause violence toward Capitol Police officers. There’s no evidence so that he did that.”

But there is, even though all the public has seen to date are opening statements. Much lies ahead.

The allegations the January 6 committee raised are perhaps the most serious ever leveled at a United States citizen, compounded by the fact that he was, at the time, the sitting president. In the U.S., we citizens are, ideally, all equal and all subject to the law.

January 6 was not a protest nor a riot, it was far worse. It was an attempt by a mob, incited and inspired by President Donald Trump, to stop the U.S. Congress from certifying the lawful election of President Joe Biden for the sole purpose of retaining to Trump a position that was not given him by the electorate. It was an insurrection. An attack on the very constitution Trump and others implicated took an oath to preserve and defend.

In our nation’s system of jurisprudence, the courts are the arbiters of right and wrong, guilt and innocence. President Donald Trump, the great litigator, fully exercised his right to prove his claim that he was cheated out of a second term in office. In 60 plus cases in courts of lawful jurisdiction, he and his followers laid claims, but provided no proof. They lost every single time, yet they continue pushing the lie even today. Arguing nothing of merit, they strive to defend the indefensible, to protect and defend a self-serving lie.

January 6, 2021, was a singular moment in U.S. history, as infamous as December 7, 1941. It was the culmination of a chain of events without precedent. It demands our unflinching and unwavering search for the truth and the administration of justice as prescribed by law.

Trying to deny, trying to deflect attention to other issues or trying to call it a partisan effort based on spite are spurious attempts at sleight of hand by inept illusionists convinced they can beguile the gullible.

This is not a time to do the expedient, to swim downstream, to rely for retained power on the support of the one U.S. President whose loyalty was to himself rather than those of the nation whose constitution demanded he faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States. We in this nation who take an oath to serve swear not to a party, not to a person. We swear fealty to an ideal, the United States Constitution, that together we citizens, being equal, may ever strive to form a more perfect union.

Donald John Trump did not “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Quite the opposite. He betrayed his country, his oath, his constituents, as did those Republicans who give allegiance to him rather than the guiding principals that define a great nation.

June 9, 2021 — Never forget: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming).