All the President’s sins

“Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break,” said Rep Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on the Capitol

Holdouts from the Trump White House are now coming forward, especially with the conviction last week of Trump consigliere Stephen Bannon, who will likely go to jail for his contemptuous refusal to appear before the Select Committee.

There will be much more ahead in putting in place the pieces of the mosaic that was, as Rep Bennie Thompson has said, an attempted coup by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election and remain in power. It was, Thompson said, a path of lawlessness and corruption.

The Select Committee is presenting all the President’s sins.

Not even the Covid infection of the current president, Joe Biden, could dent the wall-to-wall media coverage – mainstream and social – of the blockbuster hearing last Thursday night. 

What is clear now, after nine hearings by the Select Committee, is that the January 6 attack was not simply a protest that got out of control, a one-off event of limited force and duration that was over by the end of the day, with no serious threat to America’s democracy.  

What we know now is that the events of that day were the culmination of a conspiracy to keep Donald Trump in power by whatever means necessary.

The evidence presented last week – direct testimony, videotapes, telephone recordings, cell phone video – was relentless:

• Trump did not act because he did not want to stop the attack
• Trump was adamant that he wanted to go to the Capitol and join the mob
• Trump did not call any law enforcement or military officials to respond to the attack
• Trump did not call on the mob to go home until it was clear the insurrection was lost
• Trump rejected the urgings of those around him that day to call on the mob to leave
• Trump was indifferent to the physical, mortal danger to Vice President Pence
• The people around Pence, agents and staff, feared for their lives
• Trump’s tweet at 224 pm attacking Pence for not overturning the election – “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”– intensified the fury of the mob’s attack
• For hours, Trump rejected pleas from his family his staff, Republican members of Congress, political associates, to issue a statement calling on the attackers to go home
• When Trump finally made a video statement late in the day, he called the attackers “patriots.” ”We love you. Go home in peace.”

What was so powerful about the presentation – aside from its unique made-for-television, cinematic quality and the highest reality TV production values – was that every witness, every person whose testimony was shown was not only a Republican, but a Trump Republican: professionals who have worked for and with Trump during his term, who were loyal to him, who believed in him, and who were ultimately repelled by what Trump did – and did not do – that day. Trump’s people turned on Trump and spit out their stories in prime time.

In preparing his video message the day after the attack, Trump could not say, “The election is over.”

That was left on the cutting room floor “I don’t want to say the election’s over,” the video out-take reveals.

“I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over.”

Trump never in a million years believed he would be haunted by his own videos that did not make it to air the day after the insurrection.  

That mosaic of conspiracy already includes direct efforts by Trump to pressure state legislatures and state election officials to overturn the certified election results in their states.  It includes a Trump attempt to decapitate the leadership of the Justice Department and install his loyalists in order for them to pressure several states to overturn their election results. 

It includes intensive pressure on the Vice President to prevent him from carrying out his constitutional responsibilities to certify the election result in the joint session on January 6.  It includes efforts by Trump to incite the mob to attack the Capitol in order to prevent the House and Senate from completing their business that day.

Trump is now haunted by the prospect of the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, convening a grand jury to assess whether crimes were committed by Trump between Election Day in November 2020 and the attack on the Capitol. 

There is now huge pressure on the Attorney General to prosecute Trump for what he did and failed to do.  There is a strong case: Trump wanted to join the insurrectionists, he did not call on law enforcement or the military to deploy force to put the riot down, he did not tell his supporters to go home while the attack was raging.

Trump wanted the electoral count to be stopped – he wanted Congress to  be stopped from doing its duty under the law. He did not care about the mortal danger to the Vice President. 

All the President’s sins continue to this day.  His is sinning some more. 

As the Select Committee hearing convened last week, the New York Times reported:

“Donald J. Trump called a top Republican in the State Legislature in Wisconsin in recent days to lobby for a measure that would overturn his 2020 loss in the state to President Biden.” The state official, who is a Trump supporter, told Trump that there was no provision in law in Wisconsin to rescind that state’s certification of the 2020 votes, and that such an act would violate the state’s constitution.

Trump wants the 2020 election overturned. 

The only thing that can stop him is the rule of law and the commitment of all public officials who take an oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to ensure the rule of law applies to everyone – including  to the former president of the United States.