Is any issue more critical than the Constitution?

The Werkes is under no illusion. We’re in an age where a free people choose their truth with the ease of a remote-control channel selector. If you want to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that defending the Constitution means hanging Mike Pence, a thousand depositions will not change your mind.

Cavil all you want. Yes, Nancy Pelosi should have allowed Republican leader Kevin McCarthy his picks on the January 6 committee. It would have survived Jim Jordan. Democrats do want voters to forget about gas prices, baby formula, and Hunter Biden’s laptop. But two things can be true at the same time. We learned from Thursday’s 06-09-22 Made for TV hearing that:

• Donald Trump’s own campaign told him he lost. Even Sean Hannity texted Trump mouthpiece Kayleigh McEnany “No more stolen election talk!”

Liz Cheney: “President Trump ignored the rulings of our nation’s courts, he ignored his own campaign leadership, his White House staff, many Republican state officials, he ignored the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information. …  This misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.”

• The Capitol “incursion” was not a case of spontaneous combustion but was planned beforehand with Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as the shock troops.

Liz Cheney: “On 12-18-20, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections. You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there, and rushed to intervene. A little more than an hour [later], President Trump sent [a] tweet … telling people to come to Washington on January 6th: “Be there,” he instructed them. “Will be Wild!”

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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.— from Liz Cheney’s opening statement.

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• Trump said maybe Vice President Pence should be hanged. “Aware of the rioters’ chants to “hang Mike Pence,” the President responded with this sentiment: “maybe our supporters have the right idea.”
• Only Mike Pence was trying to secure the Capitol. The President enjoyed the televised show from the White House lunch room, ignoring frantic aides urging him to intervene.
• Some cabinet members discussed invoking the 25th Amendment.
• Trump should be criminally prosecuted.

Cheney: “The judge evaluated these facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes likely violated two federal criminal statutes. … While Congress was under attack on January 6th and the hours following the violence, the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room continued to work to halt the count of electoral votes.”

Blaska’s Bottom Line: However successful was Donald Trump as President, the man traduced his reputation by plying his cultish followers with a steady stream of lies. Failing other stratagems, he incited the mob to wreck the transfer of power. (His sorry asterisk midway through the speech about “peacefully and patriotically marching to make your voices heard” is what is called CYA.) That it had little chance of success is immaterial. The gunman who took a cab ride to Justice Kavanaugh’s residence failed, also.

Are You a Mule for Denial?