Month: January 2021

January 20, 2021

On a sunny day in Washington at 12:01 p m. Joseph R. Biden officially became President of the United States. It was a beautiful day. The overall mood was somber and serious but also joyous. A great moment occurred when Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President—the first woman, the first black and Asian to hold the office.

The theme of the day, set by President Biden himself, was unity. Father Donovan, former president of Georgetown University, emphasized that American patriotism was based on the words from President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, “with malice toward none, and charity for all.” President Biden in his inaugural speech said that together we can do anything; we must have unity. Also we must put away lies. The truth must always be what we rely on. He rejected a culture that manipulates and manufactures facts; he rejected incivility. He declared that we will get through this together.

Afterwards the Congressional leadership presented gifts to the President and Vice President. There was no mention of Trump. (He had departed town in the early morning). Vice President Pence carried out the duties of peacefully passing on power. The Inauguration ended with a sigh of relief, some joy and definite optimism. May it endure!

And so we come to the end of the story of the Trump administration. A sad, disappointing, depressing story in many ways. Yet viewed from another perspective, it was heroic, strengthening, even glorious. For four years America was governed by a man without principle, without decency, without honor—one who cared nothing for America, its principles or its people. He sought to remain in office, continuing to enrich himself and oppress Americans. This story is one of greed, malice, corrupt nepotism, aggression, evil, tragedy, unlimited incompetence, sedition, racism, fascism, even action that could be called traitorous. But America’s institutions and its patriots held, triumphing over the gravest threat we have ever faced since Benjamin’s Franklin’s memorable warning in 1787: when asked by a lady outside of Constitutional Hall at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention what kind of government the people had been given, a monarchy or a republic. Benjamin Franklin replied, “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.” Well, we kept it!

Keeping the Republic was not accomplished by good fortune, or by one or two heroes, or by a great leader springing up. It was held by four years of resistance, culminating in the election of 2020. It was held by many, many patriotic Americans just doing their jobs, fairly, competently and refusing to be deterred by threats—economic, political, personal—by those who would enslave us. It was held by famous people, ordinary people, thousands—millions—of citizens, Democrats, Republicans, independents who truly cared about this wonderful land of ours, founded on the principles and ideals of liberty, equality, honor, and fairness. It was saved by members of Congress, by managers of the electoral process in Georgia, by election canvasing boards in Michigan, by officials in Arizona, courts in Pennsylvania and so forth—by all of us, of whatever political stripe, all simply making sure the 2020 election was free and fair and deserving of being called the “most secure election in American history.” In conclusion, I have in mind what our Founders expected of us as heirs of the country they had created and how every generation has sought to preserve that heritage. I also recall the first few lines of “God Bless America,” written earlier and released by Irving Berlin as the world was growing darker with the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. The nation’s then-favorite singer, Kate Smith, sang it for the first time in her Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II.

God bless America, land that I love

Stand beside her and guide her

through the night with the light from above…

Perhaps it was the “light from above” which guided America through the last four years.

 

John Jay

January 19, 2021

On Saturday, January 9, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) was interviewed on CNN by Wolf Blitzer. When the January 6 attack came, she had been in the gallery of the House Chamber, as had many members in an effort to maintain social distancing during the House proceeding. One of the Capitol policemen placed benches against the door. She could hear considerable noise on the other side of the door—shouts and epithets. There was heavy banging on the door. The members on the floor were evacuated first to a secure location. Those in the gallery had to crawl to a door on their hands and knees—for fear of gunfire—so that they could be evacuated as well. Spanberger was a CIA veteran, but she had never experienced anything like this. Throughout the short interview with Blitzer, she had a very sober look on her face.

The Trump insurrection or coup had been in the works for four years and more. Trump began his career of political lies and deception as a prominent mouthpiece for the so-called Birther movement during the Obama administration. The idea was that Obama wasn’t really born in the United States and, therefore, was an illegitimate president. His mother’s having spent a lot of time in Indonesia when he was very young was also seen as problematic. Trump eventually forced Obama to produce his Hawaiian birth certificate.

During the 2016 campaign Trump appeared on Alex Jones’ Info Wars—a show constantly warning, according to Mogelson, “that the deep state—a nefarious shadow authority manipulating U.S. policy for the profit of élites—opposed Trump because he threatened its power. Jones has asserted that the Bush Administration was responsible for 9/11 and that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre never happened.”[1] When in 2018 Jones accused the bereaved parents of the children murdered at Sandy Hook of being paid actors, he was promptly expelled by Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Spotify and YouTube. For a time his presence faded, but the pandemic brought him back on proprietary websites. The deep state, the evil elite world order, “tyrannical” COVID-19 restrictions . . . Trump’s supposedly stolen election fit right in. Roger Stone, a Trump aide later convicted of seven felonies in connection with the Mueller investigation of Trump’s links to Russia, arranged for Trump’s appearance on the show. On the show Trump promised Jones, “I will not let you down.”[2]

Thus, there was a compact with the conspiracists early on that strengthened over the next four years. From Trump came perhaps upwards of 25,000 lies to the public in the last four years, of which 16,000 plus have been verified[3] from his first three years with the number escalating in 2020. “The claim of a plot to steal the election makes sense to people who see Trump as a warrior against deep-state chicanery.”[4] These are people who, having been, taken in by Trump’s vision of an alternate universe, found it strengthened by thousands of Trump lies alleging fake news, fraud, and malevolent conspiracy to the point that they were conditioned to believe whatever Trump said.

From the beginning Trump was a right-wing conspiracy theorist—a racist—who never intended to be the president of all the people. After the November 3 election, he created an opening for the extremist, racist right by his attack on the validity of the election, claiming that the election had been stolen from him (as some were conditioned to understand, by the deep state). This has created a cause that could fuel the extreme right for years. The violence of January 6 was not a chance insurrection; it had been carefully planned. Many came in full tactical combat gear with weapons despite the fact everyone was supposed to be unarmed. A significant percentage of the white-supremacy domestic terrorists that the FBI had been following were present at the assault on the Capitol. A number of them have now been arrested by the FBI.

The attack on the Capitol was a predictable apotheosis of a months-long ferment. Throughout the pandemic (aided and abetted by Trump) right-wing protesters had been gathering at statehouses, demanding entry. In April, an armed mob had filled the Michigan state capitol, chanting “Treason!” and “Let us in!” In December, conservatives had broken the glass doors of the Oregon state capitol, overrunning officers and spraying them with chemical agents.[5]

Two weeks before the Michigan event, Trump had Tweeted, “Liberate Michigan!”

The attack on the Capitol appeared far more sinister. There were some whose mission appeared to be to kill Nancy Pelosi or Vice President Pence. Mogelson reports one man taunting “Nancy, I’m Ho-ome!” and others yelling, “Hang Mike Pence!” A gallows had been set up on the Mall.[6] Pence was definitely target number one, designated so by Trump himself. The mob missed him by the narrowest of margins. The prime objective of the attack—halting the vote count—succeeded for perhaps six hours. The Capitol was temporarily filled with dangerous barbarians.

In its lead editorial of January 6, The Post editorialized:

President Trump’s refusal to accept his election defeat and his relentless incitement of his supporters led Wednesday to the unthinkable: an assault on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob that overwhelmed police and drove Congress from its chambers as it was debating the counting of electoral votes. Responsibility for this act of sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to U.S. democracy. He should be removed.”[7]

Pence upheld his Constitutional oath (as set forth in the Constitution), counted the votes and declared the winner, Joseph Biden. He did not illegally declare Trump the victor by announcing him so from the podium as Vice President—something which could only have been done without Constitutional authority. That was what Trump was pressuring him to do and that is why his refusal, made clear to Trump in advance, made him an assassination target during the insurrection. Once Pence had spoken and this last fantastical hope for overturning the election disappeared, it is difficult to understand what the goals of the would-be coup could be. A display of apparent power? A signal that Trump will continue to contend until the date when, he, Trump would return? Whatever its fuzzy objectives, the siege was a direct assault on democracy and constitutional order. As former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said, “If inciting to insurrection isn’t [an impeachable offense], then I don’t really know what is.”[8]

The next day the National Association of Manufacturers called for Trump’s immediate removal. Nancy Pelosi said impeachment was under consideration. Some called for Trump to resign, which he said he would never do. Some called for Vice President Pence to lead the effort to removal him under Article 25 of the Constitution, which addresses the need to remove a president when he can no longer carry out the duties of president. 190 cosponsors introduced a bill of impeachment in the House. Pelosi said on Monday, January 11, that she would support impeachment if Vice President Pence would not initiate the Article 25 process. The House formally asked Mr. Pence to do that on Tuesday. He promptly refused.

The Vice President made clear he would not endorse the Article 25 process. He was an assassination target on Capitol Hill for refusing to illegally and extra-constitutionally throw the election to Trump after the votes were counted. If he then led an effort to remove President Trump from office, he would have many more guns trained on him. Elaine Chao, the Transportation Secretary, and Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary, resigned saying they could not stay in a government that would carry out such a coup attempt by attacking Their resignation also meant that they could not now be pressured to signing an Article 25 petition, which would have made them targets.

Meanwhile support for impeachment increased in the House; all the Democrats favored it together with a small number of Republicans. Some additional Republican members also wished to vote for impeachment but were deterred from that by death threats. Other Republicans who opposed impeachment and who spoke on the floor against it, sounded (for the most part) like mini-Trumps. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy—a strong supporter of the stolen-election lie but also opposed the attack on the Capitol—refused to support impeachment saying it would divide the country even more, but he said he would support censure.

Some Republicans, however, were open about their support for impeachment—notably Liz Cheney (R.-Wyo.), the number three Republican in the House. She said,

The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack…. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.[9]

Representative John Katko (R.-NY), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R.-Ill.) and Representative Fred Upton (R.-Mich.) also announced their support for impeachment. Katko said, “To allow the president of the United States to incite this attack without consequences is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. If these actions…are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?”[10]

According to Michael Kranish, “Rep. Liz Cheney’s historic decision Tuesday [January 12] to vote to impeach President Trump had its roots in a dramatic phone call from her father, former vice president Richard B. Cheney.” Kranish reports that Dick Chaney warned her in his call the morning of January 6 that she was being attacked by the president in his speech to the crowd that would soon become rioters and terrorists. Trump had told them, “We got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world.” After the call from her father, she walked back on the House floor to continue her efforts to stop the House from questioning the Electoral College vote. Then she heard banging on the chamber’s door by an angry mob and a shot fired. She then realized that an attempted coup or insurrection was underway. “The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence…. He did not,” she said in her statement. Her conclusion was “I will vote to impeach the president.”[11]

Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) had said for the first time on Sunday, January 10 that the House would proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor if Vice President Pence declined to proceed under the 25^th Amendment. She said, “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”[12] Rep. Dean Phillips (D.-Minn.) noted, “There has to be consequences…”[13]

On the day of the impeachment vote in the House, the Post editorialized, “[Some Republicans and] right-wing commentators have argued that there is little difference between what the Republicans have done since last November and what Democrats did following Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory….This is unhinged. Democrats immediately acknowledged Mr. Trump’s win.”[14] Notably, Robert Harrow writing for the Washington Post revealed on January 17 that—

The fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative insiders and activists.… The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies. The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington.[15]

Harrow cites Ali Alexander as an example of those mobilizing. According to Harrow, Ali Alexander, a former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement, on January 5 led protesters at Freedom Plaza in D.C. in a chant of “Victory or death.” Earlier he had tweeted that unless Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building…1776 is *always* an option.”[16]

Another January 6 recruiter Harrow mentions was “the attorneys general group…[that] used an affiliated nonprofit called the Rule of Law Defense Fund to pay for a robocall that urged supporters to march on the Capitol at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 to ‘call on Congress to stop the steal.’  [The robocall recording said] ‘We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight.’”[17] In addition, the FBI is looking closely at three extremist groups: “the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Some of the videos [that the FBI has reviewed] appear to include members who discussed storming the Capitol about an hour ahead of the riot.”[18]

In response to violence of January 6, U.S. industry opted to largely silence Mr. Trump in a display of patriotism widely noticed and appreciated. Twitter and Facebook banned Trump from using their platforms. According to an opinion piece in The New York Times,

Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Mr. Trump’s account on Friday [January 8] “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” after a decision a day earlier by Facebook to ban the president at least through the end of his term, was a watershed moment in the history of social media.[19]

In his article on sedition, the day before the impeachment vote, Michael Gerson noted that from a distance the Trump insurrection seemed like a protest that grew out of hand, but up close it looked very different. Many of the participants came with tactical gear and communications equipment. They were hunting for Pence and Congressional leaders. They built a gallows and chanted death threats. They savagely beat police officers who resisted them, killing one. He further noted that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House Minority Leader, one of the leaders of the “election denialism at the heart of the violent revolt,” opposed impeachment because it would “only divide our country more.” McCarthy, Gerson suggested, had “a vested interest in ignoring sedition. So he is not, perhaps, the best source of advice on events moving forward.”[20]

Gerson continues, referencing the rallying cry of Rep. Lauren Boebert, who in the past had praised QAnon and promised to bring her Glock to the Capitol:[21]

The problem with McCarthy’s approach is that it assumes the threat has passed. On the morning of the Capitol attack, newly seated Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted, “Today is 1776”—comparing a revolt of treasonous misfits and conspiracy theorists to the conduct of a justified revolution…. Violent insurrectionists are still being fed the lie that their cause is equivalent to the American founding.… This conspiracy against the constitutional order has grown strong in an atmosphere of Republican appeasement. Those who want to continue that appeasement are inviting further disorder and violence. Stopping this rot in the political order will require accountability. That begins with the president, who deserves every legal and constitutional consequence our system offers. He should be impeached for sedition. He should be prevented from holding any further elective office. He should be stripped of all the perks of the post-presidency. He should be prosecuted for insurrection against the U.S. government. [22]

And then there are the many would-be Trumps and mini-Trumps. Their roles in the insurrection, must be addressed, however difficult it is to do so. Those most responsible for the post-election, traitorous behavior by some leaders of the Republican party—actions stoking insurrection—must be called to account. According to Gerson, that means (as a beginning) “ethics investigations Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and McCarthy, leading to their possible expulsion” from Congress. “These legislators urged surrender to the pernicious lies and seditious demands of violent insurrectionists who had just left the building. That is the betrayal of the oath they took to defend the Constitution.”[23]

This is good advice, it will be supported by the American people and it will be the beginning of our country’s return to a place where all men truly are believed to be created equal and have an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There are three other individuals from the House of Representatives who should be included in Gerson’s list. They are Congressman Andy Biggs (R.-Ariz.), Mo Brooks (R.-Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (R.-Ariz.). The three Congressmen, according to Alexander, worked with him on a plan to disrupt the electoral count at the Capitol. “We four schemed up of putting [sic] maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a video.[24] In a podcast interview last month Brooks said, “The question is really simple. Are you as an American citizen going to surrender in the face of unparalleled, massive voter fraud and election theft?… Or are you going to do what your ancestors did and fight for your country, your republic?”[25] And speaking shortly before Trump to the crowd of domestic terrorists and enablers that Trump sent off to attack the Capitol, Brooks said to “stop at the Capitol” and begin kicking ass.” [26]

On Wednesday, January 13, the Bill of Impeachment (the second one for Mr. Trump) was placed before the House. It passed by a vote of 232-197, with 222 Democrats and ten Republicans voting in favor. The Senate was informed on Friday, January 15, that the Bill of Impeachment would be sent over to the Senate early in the next week. Majority Leader McConnell made clear that he would not call the Senate back before January 19, to attend President Biden’s Inauguration the following day.

The Washington Post editorialized on January 13 that “If Mr. McConnell refuses to convene the Senate this week, senators must move with dispatch once they have convened, and split their time between trying Mr. Trump and enabling the launch of the Biden administration. But the nation would be better served by a prompt trial ending in the guilty verdict Mr. Trump deserves.”[27]

Domestic terrorism, white supremist organizations antedated Trump and will continue after he has left. Before he was elected, he promised to make them more powerful. And he did so, giving them opportunities. He thought that they would help him stay in office forever but they could not. These movements and organizations have grown far stronger under Trump. They represent a threat to the nation and likely we will have to deal with them for many years. What course of action should we follow? There are perhaps two broad approaches that we might follow—that of Ulysses S. Grant in 1861: “There are but two parties now, traitors and patriots…” or that of Abraham Lincoln, who in his second Inaugural Address in 1865 wrote, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to…bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve…a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Our Founders had much to say on this subject. Below are a few examples.

“Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions, a government of FORCE, and a government of LAWS; the first is the definition of despotism—the last, of liberty.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1794

“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? the answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last. . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1794

“I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.” — Abigail Adams, 1775

“It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.” — Samuel Adams, 1748

“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1776

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1800

“…America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges — George Washington, 1783

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” — Samuel Adams, 1771

“A government of laws, and not of men.” — John Adams, 1780

 

John Jay

[1] Luke Mogelson, “Among the Insurrectionists,” New Yorker, January 25, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly, Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies (New York: Scribner, 2020), pp. X-XI, https://www.amazon.com/Donald-Trump-His-Assault-Truth/dp/1982151072/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=.

[4] Mogelson, “Among the Insurrectionists.”

[5] Ibid. Words in italics added.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Editorial Board, “Trump Caused the Assault on the Capitol. He Must Be Removed,” Washington Post, January 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/remove-trump-incitement-sedition-25th-amendment/2021/01/06/b22c6ad4-506d-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html.

[8] Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis and Juliet Eilperin, “Pelosi Moves Ahead with Efforts for Trump’s Removal as Democrats Split on How Hard to Push for Impeachment,” Washington Post, January 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clybrn-impeachment-trump/2021/01/10/fd10fa88-5356-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html.

 

[9] Mike DeBonis, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim, “Several Senior Republicans Join Impeachment Push,” Washington Post, January 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-trump-impeach/2021/01/12/5e873dd0-54ed-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html.

[10] Ibid..

[11] Michael Kranish, “Before Riot, Trump Said ‘We Got to Get Rid’ of Rep. Liz Cheney. Now She Supports Impeaching Him,” Washington Post, January 12, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cheney-trump-house-impeach/2021/01/12/648c677a-54d2-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html.

[12] Sonmez, DeBonis and Eilperin, “Pelosi Moves Ahead.”

[13] Ibid.

[14] Editorial Board, “Republicans Want Reconciliation. Here’s What They Need to Do First,” Washington Post, January 12, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-want-reconciliation-heres-what-they-need-to-do-first/2021/01/12/a0db0dfa-5520-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html.

[15] Robert O’Harrow Jr., “Rallies Ahead of Capitol Riot Were Planned by Established Washington Insiders,” Washington Post, January 17, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/capitol-rally-organizers-before-riots/2021/01/16/c5b40250-552d-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu, “FBI Probes Possible Connections between Extremist Groups at Heart of Capitol Violence,” Washington Post, January 18, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/oath-keeper-three-percenter-arrests/2021/01/17/27e726f2-5847-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html.

 

[19] Kevin Roose, “In Pulling Trump’s Megaphone, Twitter Shows Where Power Now Lies,” New York Times, January 9, 2021,  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/trump-twitter-ban.html.

[20] Michael Gerson, “The U.S. Must Punish Sedition—or Risk More of It,” Washington Post, January 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-must-punish-sedition–or-risk-more-of-it/2021/01/11/97907746-5438-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html.

[21] Mogelson, “Among the Insurrectionists.”

[22] Michael Gerson, “The U.S. Must Punish Sedition.”

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Robert O’Harrow Jr., “Rallies Ahead of Capitol Riot.”

[26] Amy Davidson Sorkin, “Why Trump Must Go on Trial,” New Yorker, January 256, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/why-trump-must-go-on-trial. Teri Kanefield and Mark Reichel, “‘Trump Said I Could’: One Possible Legal Defense for Accused Rioters,” Washington Post, January 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/11/public-authority-trump-mob-capitol/.

[27] Editorial Board, “President Trump Deserved Impeachment. The Senate Must Convict Him Quickly,” Washington Post, January 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-deserved-impeachment-the-senate-must-convict-him-quickly/2021/01/13/746e3b2c-55cd-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html.

 

This discussion begins with the central fact of January 6, 2021: the serving president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, standing in front of the White House, inciting an insurrectionary mob of thugs and domestic terrorists to march on the U.S. Capitol. They marched, broke in, halted the formal certification of the duly-elected next President of the United States, Joseph Biden, and wrecked the Capitol building—the citadel of our democracy. Mayhem and violence followed President Trump’s words. Likely some intended to kill whatever senior government officials that they could find. Perhaps some thought that, if a few Senators and Members of Congress were killed as a side benefit, all the better. The scene at the Capitol was terrible with thousands of insurrectionists pushing and (then) just walking into the Capitol building. Many offices were trashed. One man allegedly held an automatic rifle. Another had 10 Molotov cocktails at the ready. Angry men with rifles shouted, “Where’s Pence?” apparently on Trump’s revenge list for not overturning the election but rather following his Constitutional mandate to only count the electoral college vote. Senators and Congressmen fled for their lives, bravely returning after the crisis had passed and persisting until Joe Biden was confirmed as president in the wee hours of the next morning. The ultimate objective had been to overturn the U.S. presidential election of November 3 and install Donald J. Trump as dictator—maybe dictator for life, like his Chinese counterpart, whose office he had so admired in the past. In the process President Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors far exceeding those of the previous presidents who had been impeached: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and even Richard Nixon.

The Washington Post put it this way:

As President Trump told a sprawling crowd outside the White House that they should never accept defeat, hundreds of his supporters [later determined to be in the many thousands] stormed the U.S. Capitol in what amounted to an attempted coup.… In the chaos, law enforcement officials said, one woman was shot and killed by Capitol Police (ultimately it was five dead including a Capitol police officer killed by the mob). The violent scene…was like no other in modern American history, bringing to a sudden halt (but happily temporary) the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.”[1]

The day before, Georgia had held two runoff elections for the Senate, as required by state law after neither of the two incumbent Republicans had garnered more than 50 percent of votes case in the November 3^rd election. One of the two Senators was running for election to a full term, the other incumbent had been appointed to fill an open seat for which she was seeking confirmation to complete the expired term of the seat. The Democratic candidates won both seats, both coming from behind. The Georgia Secretary of State’s office gave credit to Trump for causing the Republican defeat with his attacks on Georgia state officials for not supporting his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud—for not the overturning of the popular vote in Georgia. Indeed, so fixated was Trump on his own fate that he rarely spoke about the candidates while in Georgia.

President-elect Biden had won Georgia in the November 3^rd election. Now Georgia’s senatorial elections brought the number of Democrats in the U.S. Senate up to 50, meaning that, when the Biden administration takes office, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the presiding officer, the one breaking ties, thereby giving Democrats control of the Senate. The Democratic leader will become the Majority Leader, giving Democrats the Presidency as well as House and Senate majorities. Much needed real change, as a result, may happen.

The Post in its editorial of January 6 said, referring to the attack on the Capitol,

Responsibility for this act of sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to U.S. democracy. He should be removed. Mr. Trump encouraged the mob to gather on Wednesday, as Congress was set to convene (to confirm the Electoral College vote count) and to “be wild.” After repeating a panoply of absurd conspiracy theories about the election, he urged the crowd to march on the Capitol. “We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,” he said. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”[2]

Thus Trump addressed a large crowd of many thousands in front of the White House and, needless to say, was not there with them when they marched on the Capitol.

After the seditious riot got completely out of hand and after appeals from senior Republicans, Trump agreed to broadcast a video urging his followers to go home. Trump did make a statement: “‘We love you. You’re very special,’ he told his seditious posse, Later, he excused the riot, tweeting that ‘these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away.’”[3]

The Post concludes, “The president is unfit to remain in office for the next 14 days. Every second he retains the vast powers of the presidency is a threat to public order and national security.”[4] And if Trump goes, so eventually should Senators Cruz and Hawley who led the absurd and unjustified challenge to the Electoral College vote count in the first place. The joint session of Congress had no power to address the substantive fraud issues they raised. Our Founders intended this meeting as a ceremonial meeting, in which the Congress formally affirms the decisions of the states as to who will be the next president. In supporting an illegal attack on our Constitution, Cruz and are not patriots.

The Post editors quote President-elect Biden’s comments with approbation, “‘I call on this mob, now, to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward. It’s not protest. It’s insurrection. Today is a reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile.’ Mr. Biden is right. Rules, norms, laws, even the Constitution itself are worth something only if people believe in them.”[5] Americans carry out all their civic duties “…because of faith in a system—and that faith makes it work. The highest voice in the land incited people to break that faith, not just in tweets, but by inciting them to action. Mr. Trump is a menace, and as long as he remains in the White House, the country will be in danger.”[6]

In the Post’s issue of January 6, George Will identified three central characters involved in these crimes, or in his words,

The three repulsive architects of Wednesday’s heartbreaking spectacle—mobs desecrating the Republic’s noblest building and preventing the completion of a constitutional process—must be named and forevermore shunned. They are Donald Trump, and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Trump lit the fuse for the riot in the weeks before the election, with his successful effort to delegitimize the election in the eyes of his supporters. But Wednesday’s explosion required the help of Hawley (R-Mo.) and Cruz (R-Tex.)….[7]

Thus Will characterizes Cruz and Hawley’s “help” in the illegal effort to block the certification of the Electoral College vote and the recognition of Joseph Biden as president. He predicts,

The Trump-Hawley-Cruz insurrection against constitutional government will be an indelible stain on the nation. They, however, will not be so permanent. In 14 days, one of them will be removed from office by the constitutional processes he neither fathoms nor favors. It will take longer to scrub the other two from public life. Until that hygienic outcome is accomplished, from this day forward, everything they say or do or advocate should be disregarded as patent attempts to distract attention from the lurid fact of what they have become. Each will wear a scarlet ‘S’ as a seditionist.[8]

And on January 7, Michael Gerson published one of the most important articles of the last few years. A few excerpts follow:

The practical effects of the fascist occupation of the U.S. Capitol building were quickly undone. The symbols it left behind are indelible. A Confederate flag waved in triumph in the halls of a building never taken by Jefferson Davis. Guns drawn to protect the floor of the House of Representatives from violent attack. A cloddish barbarian in the presiding officer’s chair. The desecration of democracy under the banner “Jesus Saves.” This post-apocalyptic vision of chaos and national humiliation was the direct and intended consequence of a president’s incitement. It was made possible by quislings such as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who turned a ceremony of continuity into a rallying cry for hatred and treason. In the aftermath, Republican legislators who still don’t support President Trump’s immediate removal from office by constitutional means are guilty of continuing complicity.”[9]

Trump and his insurrectionists and domestic terrorists have been supported politically for a long time by disparate and more savory allies, including some conservatives from the Federalist Society (who cared about nothing except court appointments), some economic conservatives (who cared only about loosening regulation on business) and, as Gerson points out,

…above all, Trump evangelicals, who sought to recover lost social influence through the cynical embrace of corrupt power…. “There has never been anyone,” said Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, “who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!”… It is tempting to call unforgivable the equation of Christian truth with malice, cruelty, deception, bigotry and sedition. But that statement is itself contradicted by Christian truth, which places no one beyond forgiveness and affirms that everyone needs grace in different ways.”[10]

The complete and utter failure of one form of Christian engagement with the social order provides the opportunity for the emergence of another based on truth, morality and compassion. Gerson suggests that a principled agenda could include:

• True concern for the weak and vulnerable, including the poor refugees who came (and come) to our shores, as Emma Lazarus put urges in her poem on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;”
• A commitment to address and resolve the race question and improve our criminal justice system.
• A total commitment to public health here and abroad.
• An emphasis on political civility.
• A recognition of other religions also committed to love and grace for humanity; and
• “an insistence on public honesty and a belief in the transforming power of unarmed truth.”[11]

Gerson asks, “What would America be like if these had been the priorities of evangelical Christians over the past four years—or over the past four decades? It would mean something very different, in that world, to raise the banner ‘Jesus Saves.’”[12]

Trump, before thousands in front of the White House, called Joe Biden “an illegitimate president.” Subsequent events soon demonstrated who the illegitimate president was and it wasn’t Biden. Ivanka Trump tweeted that the crowd were “American Patriots.”[13] Rudolph Giuliani suggested on stage before Trump appeared that “trial by combat” decide the election.[14] And Trump himself told the crowd that they should march to the Capitol “to try and give [lawmakers] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”[15]

Former president George W. Bush posted a statement that said, in part,

It is a sickening and heartbreaking sight. This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic—not our democratic republic. I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement.[16]

Senator Mitt Romney asserted, “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States.”[17]

After the coup had failed and the crowd dissipated, the way Republicans and Democrats discovered their common bonds and spoke to one another—not as fractious party members—but as patriots and Americans was inspiring. Perhaps this appalling experience and the upcoming departure of would-be dictator Donald Trump, savage purveyor of lies and corruption, will enable the nation to have—in Abraham Lincoln’s phrase—”a new birth of freedom.” If we can face our many challenges and threats together, we cannot fail.

Hours after Sen. James Lankford’s speech challenging Arizona’s electoral college vote was interrupted by the barbaric mob that invaded our Capitol, he resumed his speech but with a different message,

“We’re the United States of America,” he said. “We disagree on a lot of things, and we have a lot of spirited debate in this room. But we talk it out, and we honor each other—even in our disagreement. That person, that person, that person”—here the senator gestured to other senators, presumably of the other party—”is not my enemy. That’s my fellow American.”[18]

Said Sen. Romney,

“I was shaken to the core as I thought about the people I met in China and Russia and Afghanistan and Iraq and other places who yearn for freedom, and who look to this building and these shores as a place of hope. And I saw the images being broadcast around the world, and it breaks my heart.”[19]

In the wake of all this House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority (soon to be Majority) leader Chuck Schumer both called for Trump’s removal from office. A growing number of Republicans were coming to the same conclusion, including Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who supported the idea of action to remove Trump as unfit for office pursuant to the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution. Senator Lindsay Graham (R.-S.C.), a close confidant of Trump, said that “The president needs to understand that his actions were the problem.”[20] Graham also urged the prosecution and imprisonment of all those who had forced their way onto the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. These were people with whom Trump sympathized and whom, after the situation was completely out of control and had been for a while, he directed to call off their attack on the Capitol and go home, adding they he loved them. Graham dismissed them as ‘domestic terrorists,’” acknowledging that some of the terrorists on the Hill had been seeking the Vice President by name, further said, “In this debacle of the last week or so, there’s one person who stands out above all others. That is Vice President Pence…The things he was asked to do in the name of loyalty were over the top, unconstitutional, illegal and would have been wrong for the country.”[21]

Never before had American democracy been threatened in quite this way—by a president who wished to make himself dictator and who did not shy from destroying American institutions and trying to terrorize its citizens. He was abetted by organizations on the conservative side of the spectrum and by people who mostly knew better. They helped Trump lead and corrupt a large group of voters with real or perceived grievances—voters who perhaps did not know better—which is a failure of American education. Trump banked on endless lies and conspiracy theories, which those supporting him did not rebut.

That he has completely failed is now manifest. Many are calling for his removal by the 25^th Amendment, resignation or impeachment. Pence, who would have to lead a 25^th Amendment process, has indicated he will not support such an action—the possibility of his being shot on Capitol Hill notwithstanding. And two cabinet officers—Elaine Chao at Transportation and Betsy DeVos at Education—have resigned, ostensibly because they rejected the January 6 violence but possibly because they didn’t want to be forced to sign a 25^th Amendment petition and themselves become targets. No one believes there is any chance that Trump would resign; Pence would certainly not now pardon him.

So that leaves impeachment which appears worth doing although its practicality is uncertain. It could continue even after Trump leaves office. However, it might just be shelved if not acted upon by January 20. If Trump just walks away, he will receive a $200,000 pension, one million dollars a year for travel, Secret Service protection for life and be free to run for president again in 2024. Trump ending his term without sanctions would seems almost like a reward, rather than a punishment, for attempting to overthrow the government and destroy our democracy. Pelosi and Schumer have declared that they are considering impeachment. The next few days will tell the story.

This time, the American people listened to or perhaps already knew the imperative from Samuel Adams.

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” — Samuel Adams, 1771

 

John Jay

[1] Rebecca Tan, Peter Jamison, Carol D. Leonnig, Meagan Flynn and John Woodrow Cox, “Trump Supporters Storm U.S. Capitol, with One Woman Killed and Tear Gas Fired,” Washington Post, January 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trump-supporters-storm-capitol-dc/2021/01/06/58afc0b8-504b-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html. Words in italics added.

[2] “Trump Caused the Assault on the Capitol. He Must Be Removed,” editorial, Washington Post, January 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/remove-trump-incitement-sedition-25th-amendment/2021/01/06/b22c6ad4-506d-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html. Words in italics added.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] George F. Will, “Trump, Hawley and Cruz Will Each Wear the Scarlet ‘S’ of a Seditionist,” Washington Post, January 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-hawley-and-cruz-will-each-wear-the-scarlet-s-of-a-seditionist/2021/01/06/65b0ad1a-506c-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Michael Gerson, “Trump’s Evangelicals Were Complicit in the Desecration of Our Democracy,” Washington Post, January 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-evangelicals-were-complicit-in-the-desecration-of-our-democracy/2021/01/07/69a51402-5110-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Sara Nathan, “Ivanka Trump ‘Surprised and Hurt’ by Karlie Kloss’ Tweets after Capitol Siege,” Page Six, January 8, 2021, https://pagesix.com/2021/01/08/ivanka-surprised-and-hurt-by-karlie-kloss-tweets/.

[14] Aaron Blake, “What Trump Said Before His Supporters Stormed the Capitol, Annotated,” Washington Post, January 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/annotated-trump-speech-jan-6-capitol/.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Philip Rucker, “Trump’s Presidency Finishes in ‘American Carnage’ as Rioters Storm the Capitol,” Washington Post, January 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-rioters-incite/2021/01/06/0acfc778-5035-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html.

[18] “To Heal America, We Must Repudiate Not Just Trump but Also His Politics of Demonization,” editorial, Washington Post, January 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-heal-america-we-must-repudiate-not-just-trump-but-also-his-politics-of-demonization/2021/01/07/8f6a7388-5117-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Matt Viser, “Trump’s Failures This Week Open Rifts in a Republican Party He Has Controlled,” Washington Post, January 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-capitol-mob/2021/01/07/f56300ac-5111-11eb-b96e-0e54447b23a1_story.html.

[21] Ibid.

 

President Trump’s term in office is coming to an end, and it cannot come quickly enough. On January 6, 2020, the day that Congress was set to certify the votes of the Electoral College and confirm the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Trump and his minions descended into violence and an attempted coup. People will disagree on what to call this: coup, riot, insurrection, mob violence, sacking (the term “putsch” might work). But the actions are clear: Donald Trump called for a rally on January 6; he and other speakers that day called for action to be taken to stop Congress; he directed the crowd to go to the Capitol and put a stop to the election certification; and then people stormed the Capitol and stopped the Congressional action while it was in process (though only for a few hours; Congress certified the vote later that night).

It’s dishonest to sugarcoat the storming of the US Capitol building as the work of protestors or demonstrators. They are insurrectionists, criminals and domestic terrorists who sought to stop the process of certifying the vote count. They were sent by the President. Democracy was attacked. People died.

This has now led to Trump’s impeachment by the US House of Representatives. He now has the historic distinction and dishonor of being the only President to be impeached twice. The Senate will end up holding its trial after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office. One can only hope that the Republicans in the Senate will vote for conviction, just like several members of the GOP in the House of Representatives voted for impeachment.

Since election day, Trump has been spouting the lies that he won the election, that the Democrats engaged in fraud and stole the election. And millions of people are buying what he’s selling. He tried stopping the count of mail-in ballots. He tried going to court to get ballots tossed out. He tried holding press conferences (the famous Rudy Guiliani hair-dye fiasco was the most notable, but the Four Seasons Landscaping debacle was a worthy second place). He encouraged unofficial “hearings” to espouse the lies. He tried applying pressure to state and local officials in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and most brazenly in Georgia with his hour-long call to the Georgia Secretary of State asking him to “find” another 11,780 votes.

And when none of that worked, Trump told Pence to reject the electoral votes in Congress, which Pence – to his credit – said he had no authority to do. In the midst of this Trump called for a rally on January 6, the day that Congress certifies the electoral college vote, saying it was going to be “wild.”

With his failure to pressure Pence to reject the electoral votes or to gum up the works, Trump spoke to the crowd in DC and then sent his people to storm Congress, right in the middle of the vote count, to keep the vote for Biden and Harris from happening. It was an attempted coup/insurrection that failed. Because this was a Trump operation, it had no strategy, no plan, no organization, no thought, and therefore no success. It failed, but it was still Trump’s show, his attack on the Constitution, on American democracy. He is now undoubtedly, the traitor-in-chief.

The President is inciting the hatred and violence. He is telling lies, made up and imaginary things, and he’s convinced a lot of people to live in his same made up, imaginary world. But this has real-world consequences. Many people, including Republican members of Congress, have been saying since the election, “Don’t worry. We can humor Trump. Let him rant on Twitter. There’s no harm. January 20 will come soon and Joe Biden will be inaugurated.” How wrong those people were. We’ve learned for four years as a nation that there’s no such thing as rock bottom where Donald Trump is concerned. The Republic is not safe while he’s in office, and it will take a lot of work to make it safe once he’s out of office.

The political polarization in the country has now reached a level where there has been violence in the US Capitol building, and we don’t know what’s next. What’s worse is that the far right-wing extremist groups that have been a key part of Trump’s support, that formed a significant part of the group that came out to Washington DC to protest the election, and whose actions long pre-date Donald Trump, scored a big propaganda victory on January 6. Many of the participants that day were members of militia movement groups and white supremacist and white nationalist groups. They will be bragging about this for a long time. And this may very well mark a milestone that portends even greater right-wing violence, perhaps encouraged or prompted by a Donald Trump who, once out of office, will have no political restraints and no responsibilities.

In a just world, Trump would have resigned immediately on January 6 or been thrown out right away by Mike Pence and the Cabinet using the 25^th Amendment. Once he’s out of office, he should be convicted by the Senate and barred from ever holding office again. He should also face criminal prosecution for inciting violence and insurrection, and for what is likely to be the illegal calls and meetings he held and directives he gave to others to try and overturn the free and fair election he lost. He may also face criminal charges from the state of New York for his financial dealings prior to serving in office. If this happens, this will be justice.

Maybe the events of January 6 and Trump’s second impeachment will change the minds of a growing number of the people who have supported, enabled, aided and abetted Trump for the past several years. Maybe the “Trumplicans” have burst their own balloon.

Wouldn’t it be nice…

Alexander Hamilton

Since November 3, 2020, President Trump has been focused on nothing but how he might legally or illegally overturn the freely, fairly, sincerely, honestly and legally expressed will of the American people in the national election.

According to Max Boot, “Trump’s singular focus since the election has been on overturning the results even at the cost of destroying U.S. democracy.”[1] He has sought to keep himself in office even though he was soundly defeated by President-elect Joseph Biden and even though the Constitution requires that he leave office on January 20, 2021. During the period since November 3, he has done no governing and has looked the other way as more than 100,000 Americans have been killed by the pandemic. He has been “spewing conspiracy theories about nonexistent election fraud—claims that have been rejected in 59 court cases and counting, including by Trump-appointed Judges….”[2] from two Supreme Court cases on down. As Boot further reports,

On Friday [December 18], …Trump met at the White House with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a pardoned felon, and attorney Sidney Powell, who was fired from the Trump legal team after promoting conspiracy theories about the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s programming U.S. voting machines—a theory then too wacky even for Trump. Trump reportedly discussed with the duo Flynn’s idea of declaring martial law and having the military ‘rerun’ the election—or, failing that, appointing Powell as a special counsel to probe (nonexistent) election fraud.… Never before in U.S. history has there been a record of a president discussing a military coup to stay in office.[3]

Promptly on December 22, Mr. Trump received a response to this suggestion from the U.S. military. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville and Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy declared that “there is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election….”[4] and Bill Barr, before leaving office on December 23, said that “he saw no evidence of ‘systematic or broad-based’ election fraud and no basis for seizing election machines, appointing a special counsel to investigate voting irregularities or tapping a special counsel to examine President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter.”[5]

Nevertheless, on December 28, President-elect Joe Biden complained that the White House was trying to make things more difficult for his transition team. He cited the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense particularly, where “road blocks” had been placed in front of his transition team. And in this regard, he mentioned the national security sector more broadly. The President-elect said that “Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility…. As our nation is in a period of transition, we need to make sure that nothing is lost in the handoff between administrations. My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.” [6]

Now, why would President Trump obstruct the transition? To force important civilian elements of the national security sector to support his coup d’état effort to overturn the election and help him achieve his dream of being dictator for life? Or to “salt the earth” and “poison the well” so that Biden will have a difficult time doing anything in his first few months and thereby be easy to blame for the inevitable catastrophes resulting from Trump administration policy? Or to provoke a war with Iran in a wag-the-dog effort? Trump could then argue that, no matter what the Constitution says, he needs to stay in office because of the national emergency.

Trump’s attention has already turned to the January 6 joint session at which the Electoral College votes cast to elect Joe Biden as president will formally be certified and Biden declared the next president. Trump has expressed a desire to use this session for one more attempt to overturn the election and take the voting franchise away from the American people. He returned from Mar-a-Lago on December 31, cutting his stay in Florida short by a day, to begin his planning with Senator Hawley and others on how to enhance election overturn efforts. The January 6 meeting provided for by the Constitution and more fully implemented by the Electoral Count Act of 1887 makes it clear that this meeting is intended as a final procedural step prior to the inauguration of the president two weeks later. For electoral votes gained pursuant to state law—“regularly given”—and required procedural steps such as certification and placing the seal of the state on the document by the governor made in a timely fashion, that is by December 8—referred to as “safe harbor”—the decision of the Electoral College is final. The role of the Congress is to verify that it has the correct, valid electoral state certificates and then the President of the Senate counts them and declares the winner. In summary,

…the 1887 act obligates Congress to consider “conclusive” a state’s own “final determination” of litigation over a state’s appointment of electors when two conditions are met. The “final determination” must occur by a certain date, Dec. 8 [in 2020], and must be based on state laws existing before Election Day.… Congress instructs governors to provide verification of these two conditions in their certifications.[7]

It is the states’ decisions on the election of president by means of the Electoral College, not that of Congress; January 6 is intended as simply a procedural ratification of those decisions. Thus, substantive debate about something like fraud, has no place at the January 6 joint session which is intended as said above as a formal, procedural meeting—nothing more.

Under the 1887 law, a member of Congress can raise an objection to a particular state’s slate of electors, but the objection must be signed by at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate. If this happens, each House of Congress goes into separate rooms, debates the issue for two hours and then votes. Only if both houses agree to accept the objection does anything further happen. A few weeks ago, a right-wing House member said he was willing to enter an objection and then after a week or two Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he would do so as well—in spite of the fact that the Majority Leader of the Senate and the head of the Republican Caucus in the Senate, Senator McConnell, strongly urged that no member of his caucus do this. Michael Gerson commented on Senator Hawley’s decision on December 31 for the Washington Post:

The announced intention of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to object to certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory is a particularly bad omen for the GOP’s future…. In the cause of his own advancement, the senator from Missouri is willing to endorse the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans—particularly voters of color—and justify the attempted theft of an election. He is willing to credit malicious lies that will poison our democracy for generations. The fulfillment of Hawley’s intention—the ultimate overturning of the election—would be the collapse of U.S. self-government. The attempt should be a source of shame.[8]

Increasingly over the years the policies of delegitimization have moved to the fore. President Clinton was accused of murder by prominent evangelicals, for example. But the greatest practitioner of this evil is Donald J. Trump. By his endless lies to the American people after being roundly defeated by Biden in the “most secure election in American history,”[9] Trump converted his actual defeat into victory in the minds of some followers through his claims of vast nationwide fraud and supposed manipulations of U.S. voting machines by a dead Venezuelan dictator. Trump made these baseless assertions cardinal principles of GOP loyalty. With the extremist cult of QAnon becoming a wholly mainstream political organization, fanatical racists and fascist Republicans claimed that Democratic leaders are pedophiles, Vladimir Putin is a better friend to the U.S. government than our own intelligence agencies, all Mexican immigrants are rapists, white fascists are “good people,” and on and on. Such required beliefs for loyal Trump Republicans are all well beyond the bounds of rationality. By means of the Big Lie, Trump is systematically deconstructing the institutions of our democracy in an effort to make the population a servile mass. Trump is humiliating the United States, trampling on and making a mockery of the Constitution he is sworn to defend—all while enriching himself. If not complete insanity, Trump’s actions are—even though it is not a crime (except in wartime)—treason.

Into this pass comes Senator Josh Hawley—trying to become a younger, smarter Trump and perhaps more dangerous. What can America do about this? Will there be an endless parade of smarter and more capable Trumps? According to Gerson,

We can praise and support Republican politicians such as Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Govs. Larry Hogan (Maryland) and Brian Kemp (Georgia) who are standing in the gap. And we must ensure that the aspirations of people such as Hawley—who has made the madness more mainstream—come to nothing. This begins with a simple and sad recognition: The ambitions of this knowledgeable, and talented young man are now a threat to the republic.[10]

Hawley is known as a man who strongly opposes authoritarianism in China, but he appears to like it here—as long as he can be Deputy Dictator for life under Trump. Maybe Russia would be a better place for him. Anywhere but here.

Hawley’s Senate colleague, Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)—a man with a real future—called the effort to use the forthcoming January 6 joint session as a vehicle to overturn the election, a “dangerous ploy.”[11]

In an open letter to his constituents, Sasse wrote that there is no evidence of fraud so widespread that it could change the results and said he has urged his colleagues to reject “a project to overturn the election…. All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party” Sasse wrote on Facebook shortly before midnight Wednesday [December 30] “We ought to be better than that.”[12]

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and a group of Arizona Republicans filed a suit in a Federal District Court in Texas which argued that the 1887 Act was unconstitutional and urged that the judge recognize that the Constitution gives the Vice President sole discretion as president of the Senate to determine whether electors approved by the states are valid. Vice President Pence disavowed the suit and promptly had a justice department lawyer oppose it in court. Lawyers representing the House of Representatives also asked the court to reject the suit.

There is no provision in the Constitution to justify such an absurd theory. It would have meant that Al Gore could have simply ruled unilaterally in his own favor in Bush vs. Gore. Vice-President Pence clearly wanted none of this. The judge asked for pleading by Friday, December 31, but initially said nothing about the suit. However, within 12 hours of the filing of the pleadings, on January 1, 2021, the judge rejected the case on the ground that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case.

What is this case all about anyway? Hawley, Gohmert and others in the House are trying to persuade Congress to do what it cannot legally do—overturn the election. As noted above, the Electoral College result is final. Minor objections can be debated for 2 hours in separate sessions in each House, but nothing can happen unless both Houses vote to do something. The Democrats have a majority in the House, and many Republicans in the Senate have now declared against Hawley.

Trump himself doesn’t care about the Constitution or law and so still wants to overthrow the election and establish himself as dictator for life. But he isn’t going to realize this aim. The 100-plus House members planning to support an objection want to curry favor with Trump’s base to ease their re-election two years hence. Hawley is a different matter; he may hope to run for President in 2024. He is taking the Republic to the brink of calamity to further his own ambitions. He should never in the future be allowed in sight of the White House. According to Washington Post reporting, more Senators are also now joining Hawley. A group of eleven senators and senators-elect, led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), announced their intent to join Hawley in calling for an “emergency 10-day audit” to investigate nonexistent irregularities in certain states based on Trump’s unfounded claims.[13]

On January 3 Trump conducted an hour-long phone call with Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Also on the call were several Trump lawyers, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (muttering about conspiracy theories) and Raffensperger’s general counsel Ryan Germany. Alternately pleading, demanding, threatening and begging, Trump insisted that Raffensperger recalibrate the Georgia vote count and show him as the victor. Trump threw an endless cascade of false claims, unsubstantiated charges, and strange conspiracies at the two Georgia officials. Each one either Georgia’s Secretary of State or his general counsel batted down. According to Amy Gardner’s account of the conversation, Trump told Raffensperger that he would be subject to criminal action if he didn’t fix the vote, sounding more and more unhinged. Finally, Raffensperger politely ended the call.[14]

Looking at possible legal ramifications of such a call, Gardner reports,

Prosecutors would likely exercise discretion in considering a case against an outgoing president, experts said. Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, said the legal questions are murky, and it could be difficult to prove that Trump knew he was encouraging illegal behavior. But Foley also emphasized that the call was “inappropriate and contemptible” and should prompt outrage…. [However, other legal scholars pointed out that] by exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” the president appeared to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia, which could violate both state and federal law…. [They went on to note that] Trump’s apparent threat of criminal consequences if Raffensperger failed to act could be seen as an attempt at extortion and a suggestion that he might deploy the Justice Department to launch an investigation.[15]

Additionally, “former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement Sunday [January 3] that said that the efforts to upend the electoral college results ‘strike at the foundation of our republic,’ adding that he could not think of ‘a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans.’”[16]

After 11 more Republican senators announced they would join Sen. Hawley in challenging the electoral tally, other Republican colleagues pushed back:

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) responded in a blistering statement that the effort “directly undermines” Americans’ right to choose their leaders, and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called it an “egregious ploy.” Hawley shot back that Toomey and others were engaging in “shameless personal attacks.”…[Additionally] Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said lawmakers had “a solemn responsibility to accept these electoral college votes that have been certified” by state officials. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) added, “I think the overwhelming weight of the evidence is that Joe Biden defeated my candidate, Donald Trump, and I have to live with it.” Late Sunday Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) issued a statement saying that he shares the “concerns of many Arkansans about irregularities in the presidential election,” but that the Founders “entrusted our elections chiefly to the states—not Congress,” and that he therefore will not oppose the counting of certified electoral votes.[17]

The dissension within the Republican Party on Capitol Hill dividing the worshipful courters of Donald Trump and independent members of Congress reached into the House as well. Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), number three in the House leadership, broke with Congressman McCarthy, the Minority Leader and the Trumpists around him.

[Cheney] circulated a 21-page memo rebutting the case made by the dissenting senators. She urged members not to go down the path of questioning states’ voting tallies. “Such objections set an exceptionally dangerous precedent, threatening to steal states’ explicit constitutional responsibility for choosing the President and bestowing it instead on Congress,” Cheney wrote. “This is directly at odds with the Constitution’s clear text and our core beliefs as Republicans.”[18]

Representative Liz Cheney commented again in the House after Trump’s phone call with the Georgia officials that it was “deeply troubling.”[19] Also, “Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is up for reelection in 2022, said he would vote to affirm the duly chosen electors from any contested state. He said that he ‘cannot support allowing Congress to thwart the will of the voters.’”[20] Josh Holmes, an outside advisor to Senator McConnell said that,

I think it is revealing that there is not a single senator who is arguing that the election was stolen from President Trump. The divide in the party is whether it’s appropriate to pull the pin on an electoral college grenade, hoping that there are enough responsible people standing around who can shove it back in before they detonate American democracy.[21]

Except for a few billionaires, why would anyone want to keep Trump in office? He has been soundly rejected by 81 million Americans—a solid majority. if he is returned as President by force, for which substantial elements of the Republican Party are now arguing, the American people will revolt. There will be civil war, perhaps even secession by states.

And what would we be getting? A completely incompetent, unhinged, neo-fascist, racist ready to sell the United States out to Russia at the drop of a hat—a man hopelessly incapable of governing, a man personally responsible for perhaps 250,000 American deaths[22] because of his mishandling of the pandemic, which at the beginning was simple arrogant cluelessness but which has morphed into deliberate, malevolent action. If continued in office, he would cause hundreds of thousands more deaths. Why would anyone want that? Were a second presidential vote tomorrow, the count should be—I don’t say it would be—approximately 155 million to, say, 50.

Since the election, President Trump has virtually ceased acting as president; he has worked exclusively as an agent to overthrow the free election of November 3 and with it, our democratic way of government—indeed the entire governmental order of the United States of America. He stood by while the pandemic increased to a million new cases a week and the death toll reached more than 350,000 innocent Americans. He stood by while the Iranian rockets struck our Embassy in Bagdad. And he stood by and took no notice while the Russians pulled off the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the United States—widespread cyberattacks. The lack of response to such challenges suggests that, for all intents and purposes, there is no longer an acting president in the Oval Office. Trump can continue to sit there, but he shouldn’t receive a salary or any classified intelligence information.

Lawrence Wright wrote what is regarded by many as the best article yet on COVID titled “The Plague Year,” in the January 4 and 11 issue of the New Yorker. In that article the author said much on US leadership. A short excerpt might be appropriate here. Wright opines that one of the critical elements in dealing with a pandemic is that there be good leadership: “Nations and states that have done relatively well during this crisis have been led by strong, compassionate, decisive leaders who speak candidly with their constituents….[23]

With regard to leadership, March 16 was a fateful day last year for the United States. On that day—a turning point—President Trump explicitly abandoned any effort to adopt a rational plan and then began undercutting efforts by governors to acquire the necessary protective equipment (which was in short supply) and undermining the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) efforts to encourage Americans to wear masks. As Wright concludes:

Trump, by his words and his example, became not a leader but a saboteur. He subverted his health agencies by installing political operatives who meddled with the science and suppressed the truth. His crowded, unmasked political rallies were reckless acts of effrontery. In his Tulsa speech, he said that he’d asked his health officials to “slow the testing down”—impeding data collection just to make his Administration look better.[24]

In this time of fevered conspiracy theories, of discussions of martial law, of the president’s attempting a coup to avoid the decision of the American people to turn him out in the dark—the ten living former Secretaries of Defense felt obligated to write an op-ed warning “Involving the Military in Election Disputes Would Cross into Dangerous Territory.” They said in part:

As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, ‘there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.’ Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory…. Transitions, which all of us have experienced, are a crucial part of the successful transfer of power…. American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy…. [Transitions] often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture. They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation. Given these factors, particularly at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in active operations around the world, it is all the more imperative that the transition at the Defense Department be carried out fully, cooperatively and transparently.[25]

The ten former Secretaries of Defense then called on the current Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller and his staff to ensure that such a transition happens.

Also in the current New Yorker magazine Adam Gopnik writes that it is faulty reasoning to look for the causes for America’s decline toward authoritarianism under Trump. We needn’t focus our energies on why there is a crisis in democracy. Citing a character from Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking-Glass,” Gopnik urges us to recognize that with democracy (as well as in Carroll’s fanciful story) “It always happens.”[26] Democracy is not the normal state of humanity. “The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy.”[27] Our Founders certainly believed this; that is why they put so many checks and balances in the Constitution. All of them feared domestic tyranny far more than foreign threats such as Great Britain.

“…and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.” – Alexander Hamilton, – 1787

“There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free Government, ought to be to trust no man living, with power to endanger the public liberty.” – John Adams, 1772

“…how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled, as it were, by an irresistible fate to despotism…” – James Monroe, 1788

Both today and during the many threats in the past—such as the Goldwater/Joe McCarthy/John Birch Society period not so long ago—“The interesting question,” according to Gopnik, “is not what causes autocracy (not to mention the conspiratorial thinking that feeds it) but what has ever suspended it,”[28] How does democracy prevail, how is it strengthened so as to survive? Gopnik’s answer:

The way to shore up American democracy is to shore up American democracy—that is, to strengthen liberal institutions, in ways that are unglamorously specific and discouragingly minute…. The rule of law, the protection of rights, and the procedures of civil governance are not fixed foundations, shaken by events, but practices and habits, constantly threatened, frequently renewable. “A republic if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin said. Keeping a republic is a matter not of preserving it like pickles but of working it like dough…it is the essential diet to feed our democracy if we are to make what always happens, for a little while longer, happily unhappen.[29]

 

John Jay

[1] Max Boot, “Trump Saved the Worst for Last,” Washington Post, December 20, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/20/trump-saved-worst-last/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Trump’s Final Month Might Make the Past Four Years Seem Calm,” editorial, Washington Post, December 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-final-month-might-make-the-past-four-years-seem-calm/2020/12/22/792db7ac-449b-11eb-a277-49a6d1f9dff1_story.html.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Amy B. Wang, Jenna Johnson, and Dan Lamothe, “Biden Accuses Trump Appointees of Obstructing Transition on National Security Issues,” Washington Post, December 28, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-trump-obstruction/2020/12/28/d4dd6e7e-4925-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html.

[7] Edward B. Foley, “Sorry, President Trump. January 6 Is Not an Election Do-Over,” Washington Post, December 29, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/29/sorry-president-trump-january-6-is-not-an-election-do-over/.

[8] Michael Gerson, “Josh Hawley’s Heedless Ambition Is a Threat to the Republic,” Washington Post, December 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/josh-hawleys-heedless-ambition-is-a-threat-to-the-republic/2020/12/31/1d3f8260-4b9c-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html.

[9] Scott Pelley, “Fired Director of U.S. Cyber Agency Chris Krebs Explains Why President Trump’s Claims of Election Interference Are False,” Sixty Minutes, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-results-security-chris-krebs-60-minutes-2020-11-29/.

[10] Gerson, “Josh Hawley’s Heedless Ambition.”

[11] Rosalind S. Helderman and John Wagner, “Pence Seeks Rejection of Lawsuit That Aimed to Expand His Power to Overturn the Election,” Washington Post, December 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sasse-letter-electoral-college-ploy/2020/12/31/44da8dba-4b65-11eb-a9d9-1e3ec4a928b9_story.html.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey, “Growing Number of Trump Loyalists in the Senate Vow to Challenge Biden’s Victory,” Washington Post, January 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senators-challenge-election/2021/01/02/81a4e5c4-4c7d-11eb-a9d9-1e3ec4a928b9_story.html.

[14] Amy Gardner, “‘I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes’: In Extraordinary Hour-Long Call, Trump Pressures Georgia Secretary of State to Recalculate the Vote in His Favor” Washington Post, January 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Dan Balz, “Trump Knows No Limits as He Tries to Overturn the Election,” Washington Post, January 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-knows-no-limits-as-he-tries-to-overturn-the-election/2021/01/03/e192bf90-4e05-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html.

[17] Mike DeBonis and Paul Kane, “Bitter GOP Split Upends the Pomp as a New Congress Takes Over,” Washington Post, January 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-republicans-fight-new-congress/2021/01/03/27eff4d0-4dd4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim, “Trump Sabotaging GOP on His Way Out of Office with Push to Overturn Election,” Washington Post, January 4, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-sabotage-republicans/2021/01/04/df5d301e-4eb1-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Lauren Tierney and Tim Meko, “How Much Is 250,000 Deaths? Enough to Empty Wide Swaths of the Country,” Washington Post, November 20, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/20/250000-covid-deaths-map/?arc404=true.

[23] Lawrence Wright, “The Plague Year,” New Yorker, January 4, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry, and Donald Rumsfeld, “All 10 Living Former Defense Secretaries: Involving the Military in Election Disputes Would Cross into Dangerous Territory,” Washington Post, January 3, 2021,  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html..

[26] Adam Gopnik, “What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy,” New Yorker, January 4, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/what-we-get-wrong-about-americas-crisis-of-democracy.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Gopnik, “What We Get Wrong.”

[29] Ibid.