January 6 contrasts

Last week in the United States, we marked the second anniversary of the January 6th attack on our Congress by supporters of then-President Trump who were trying to keep the election of Joe Biden from being certified.

There was a short, solemn ceremony on the Capitol steps, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Families of officers who died in the aftermath of the attack read their names and a bell was rung in their memory. There was a period of silent reflection of 140 seconds to honor the 140 officers who were injured that day, some so severely that they had to leave their jobs permanently. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Republican House members chose not to attend. Only one was spotted among the 200+ Democrats commemorating the day.

In the afternoon, President Biden honored fourteen individuals with the Presidential Citizens Medal. Nine were police officers who worked to defend the Capitol. Sadly, three of the medals were given posthumously. I was especially moved by the acknowledgement that the two officers who died by suicide after dealing with trauma from the attack were its victims as much as if they had died as a direct result of physical injury. Also honored were five people who upheld the integrity of the 2020 election, despite threats and actions against them.

Meanwhile, the House Republicans not only did not show respect for the anniversary but also displayed their inability to govern effectively. Late in the evening of January 6th, Kevin McCarthy failed to be elected Speaker for the fourteenth time. Two years ago, McCarthy was among the 139 House Republicans who refused to certify state electors in the 2020 presidential electoral college, even after the mob had broken in, ransacked the Capitol, and threatened to harm or kill Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi, and members of Congress. Many of those 139 are still in Congress, including some who are known to have been involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It’s not known if any of them will eventually face charges or other consequences for their actions, but their refusal to honor the sacrifices of the officers who defended them two years ago was telling.

In the early morning hours of January 7th, McCarthy won the speakership on the 15th ballot because enough Republicans voted “present” rather than “no” for him to get the majority of votes cast. Unfortunately, McCarthy and the House Republicans so far have shown no intention of working with Democrats toward effective governance. They have passed a rules package that calls for votes on bills that the Senate will never take up, gutted the Office of Congressional Ethics, and passed a meaningless bill to require care for a baby born alive after an attempted abortion, meaningless because, in the rare instances where this occurs, those protections are already in place.

I am still holding out hope that there will be a few moderate Republicans who will join with House Democrats to pass needed bills into law over these next two years. It may take a lot of complicated maneuvers to get bills to the floor, such as discharge petitions. Of course, it would be much easier if McCarthy reaches out to craft bipartisan bills for the good of the American people but he hasn’t shown that level of political ability as of yet.

Stay tuned.
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/12/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-12th-2023/

this Fourth of July

It’s the fourth of July, commemorated here in the United States as Independence Day. It’s supposed to be a “happy” day, but it’s hard to feel happy with our country mired in divisiveness and the undermining of our fundamental rights and democratic institutions.

I know I have been relatively silent here at Top of JC’s Mind lately. Part of it is a renewed wave of grief over Paco as we have entered the one year anniversary of his fall and final decline and the fact that I had deferred a large portion of my grief over Nana while dealing with his needs.

The larger share of my delays in posting, though, is that the posts I need to write about the Supreme Court decisions and the January 6 Select Committee hearings are difficult to write.

The Preamble to our Constitution proclaims that “We the People” are striving toward “a more perfect Union.” This Fourth of July is one of grief, watching my country lurch further away from that ideal rather than making halting, if messy, progress toward it.

hearings

We arrived home from the UK just in time for the first primetime hearing of the findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Since that hearing held on June 9th, there have been three more during the daytime with several more on the schedule.

Because I follow the news closely, I had thought that the hearings might not be very revelatory for me but I have found them to be very powerful. Part of the impact is that the testimony is all under oath. While some of the information had been revealed by investigative reporting or published in books by various participants, one was never quite sure of the veracity of claims. Knowing that witnesses are sworn to tell the truth makes it more likely that they are, given that committing perjury before Congress or a court can result in imprisonment. The vast majority of the 1000+ people who have been interviewed in the investigation came forward voluntarily without being compelled by subpoena, so they intended to tell what they had seen and heard for the good of the country. The committee also has access to hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence, enabling it to stitch together a detailed timeline of the web of activities that led to the January 6th attack as well as what happened on that day and in the aftermath.

In the daytime hearings, a different member of the Committee has taken the lead in questioning, sometimes paired with a member of the staff. The staff includes experienced lawyers and investigators who have done the lion’s share of the work with witnesses and evidence.

At this point, the Committee is providing a preliminary review of its findings; a written report will be issued later in the year. They are doing a very comprehensive job of laying out evidence in an organized and cogent way. It probably helps that many of the committee members are themselves lawyers with courtroom experience. Their questioning of live witnesses is very straightforward so that each witness can tell their story without the distraction of political grandstanding. Most of the witnesses, whether appearing live or in recorded clips, are Republican officeholders, officials, or staff, so that it is clear that the Committee is not just interviewing critics of the Trump administration or engaging in hearsay. The Committee is putting forth actual evidence that you would expect to find in a court of law.

Chair Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, presides and does opening and closing statements at each hearing; Vice-chair Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, also does opening and closing statements each time. She has been particularly vocal in calling out Trump and the Republicans who assisted him in the lies about the 2020 election that led to the Capitol attack.

The testimony has revealed some previously undisclosed details. For example, in the hearing that centered on threats to then Vice-president Mike Pence, we learned that attackers got within forty feet of him as he was being evacuated, that he refused to leave the Capitol grounds, and that he was acting as commander-in-chief in calling in the National Guard as Trump refused to act.

It’s sobering and terrifying to see through this evidence how close our country came to an actual collapse of our democracy. If Pence and Republican members of Congress had delayed certification in violation of the Constitution, there would likely have been widespread violence in all regions of the country; Trump would have declared martial law and it would have been very difficult to recover our democracy. It’s also chilling to see the continuing impacts on our electoral process. A number of states have enacted provisions that make it easier to disenfranchise voters or ignore their legally cast ballots. Supporters of the lies about the 2020 election are winning elected office in some states, enabling them to interfere with government from within.

It’s very tense to be in the middle of all this, gaining all this knowledge but not knowing if/when there will be consequences for those who engaged in wrongdoing. We know the Justice Department is investigating but we don’t know if they will charge Trump, members of his administration and staff, and members of Congress with crimes pertaining to attempts to stage a coup. The Committee will make recommendations for legal reforms to the Electoral Count Act and other measures to try to avert another attempt to interfere with the certification of the election. These should be widely endorsed and enacted with large majorities of both parties but it remains to be seen if they will.

It scares me that so many current Republicans still cling to lies about the 2020 election and refuse to take responsibility for their activities that supported it. Even after the attack, eight senators and 139 representatives voted against acceptance of some of Biden’s electors, even though there was no factual basis to do so. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican who led a group on a long tour of the House office buildings the day before the attack though the entire Capitol complex was closed to visitors due to the pandemic, is denying he did anything wrong, even with evidence that a member of the tour group was part of the January 6 mob. There are dozens of members of Congress who should resign over their shameful disregard for their oath to uphold the Constitution but there is not even the possibility of Republican votes in favor of censure, much less removal from Congress.

I’m trying to remain hopeful that these hearings will break through the denial bubble that surrounds many Republican voters. After being the only major broadcast/news outlet to not air the initial primetime hearing, Fox News has begun to provide some coverage. I think that the powers that be at Fox News knew that the hearings would be important because during the primetime hearing, they did not take their usual commercials breaks so that their viewers wouldn’t be tempted to check in on the hearings. It’s also important to remember that Fox News, despite its name, is not really a news channel. While there are actual journalists who work for Fox News, they only have a few hours of airtime per week. The vast majority of their programming is classified as “entertainment” with pundits/personalities who are not constrained by any standards of truthfulness or propriety. The breath-taking amount of fear-mongering that Fox News and other right-wing outlets echoes and engenders the civic divide that Trump and the Republicans created and which threatens our democracy.

If Republicans watch the hearings, they will hear a number of familiar people and themes. Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, one of the most revered conservative jurists, was featured in one hearing, speaking about the current dangers to our democracy. A number of the witnesses have spoken about the role of their faith in their actions. Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers was particularly eloquent in this regard.

I have been moved by the real-world consequences for those who protected the integrity of the election and of the Capitol. Speaker Bowers’ account of the threats against him and his family, including harassment at his home as he and his wife attended to their terminally ill daughter. US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards’ testimony on being injured on January 6th and still trying to aid her fellow officers in what amounted to hand-to-hand combat, not the policing work for which they had been trained. The appalling loss of any sense of safety or security for election workers Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, including even the ability to use their own names in public for fear of being attacked after being repeatedly vilified by Trump, Giuliani, and their followers.

I will continue to watch the hearings and the analysis and urge all the people of the United States to do the same. I hope that they will mark a turning point for the electorate so that we can root out all those who have failed in their oaths to uphold the Constitution before it is too late.

The hearings are showing us how close we came to disaster and how little time we have to strengthen our democratic institutions against attack.

seditious conspiracy and excess electors

As we have just passed the one-year anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol, we are getting more public insight into the investigations surrounding it.

In the United States, law enforcement and local, state, and federal judiciary officials do not publicly comment on ongoing investigations. They do this to avoid tipping their hand to those who might potentially be contacted to testify or who might eventually be indicted and also to not prejudice future jurors. This does, however, lead to lots of public speculation. Over 700 people had been charged in connection to the January 6th attack, many with misdemeanors but some with felonies, such as assaulting police officers.

This week, eleven members of the extremist group Oath Keepers, including their founder Stewart Rhodes, were charged with seditious conspiracy in conjunction with the attack on the Capitol. While there had been a few prior conspiracy charges, such as conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, this is the first instance of charges of seditious conspiracy.

The indictment is quite detailed about the weeks of planning and the actions of the Oath Keepers before, during, and after the January 6th Capitol breach. It helps explain why it took a bit over a year to issue the indictment, as it takes time to amass the evidence needed for the grand jury to charge the defendants. Now that this indictment focused on the Oath Keepers has been handed down, it’s possible that we may see other, similar indictments of members of the Proud Boys and other extremist groups. Given the way that these big investigations tend to start with lesser crimes and work their way through to more serious charges among those who engaged in orchestrating events, we may eventually see indictments of some elected officials who helped or coordinated with these groups.

It is likely that we are seeing a similar dynamic with the House select committee investigation. Investigative reporters have recently obtained copies of forged electoral college certification documents for Donald Trump from five states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin) that Joe Biden won, which were sent to the Congress and the National Archives. This suggest an organized attempt by Republicans to commit election fraud. Note that these materials were obtained by journalists through Freedom of Information Act requests in the states. They were not leaked from any Congressional or judicial investigations but it seems that those investigations already have these documents as part of their evidence.

Patience is required to see if this evidence will eventually result in charges but it seems that more and more evidence of conspiracy to overturn a valid presidential election is coming to light. I find it unnerving to see how close the US came to a coup but I hope that these investigations will root out all those responsible and bring them to justice before they have another chance to try again. If they do get that chance and succeed in rigging an election or overturning the results of a fair election, the United States will cease to be the oldest functioning democracy in the modern world.

We must not risk that happening.

In the United States, no one is above the law.

At least, that is what we keep telling ourselves.
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/14/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-14th-2022/

January 6

January 6, like December 7 and September 11, has entered the consciousness of the United States as a date on which we were attacked. January 6 is more painful to me because the attack was perpetrated by our own citizens, animated by lies about the integrity of the 2020 election.

The harm of the attack on the Capitol was compounded by over one hundred members of Congress who voted on January 7 against certifying the votes from some states, despite dozens of recounts, audits, and court cases verifying the accuracy of the vote count. Investigations since have also shown there was no widespread voter fraud or irregularities with the 2020 election.

Strangely, the same people who insist the 2020 election was rigged have discounted the election interference that took place in the 2016 election. This interference, which was known publicly in part before the election and elucidated further by the Mueller report and the talking indictments of Russian operatives after the election, could have impacted the result of the election, especially in the targeted districts that the Trump campaign told the Russians about from their internal campaign polling data.

After the Republicans refused the opportunity to set up an independent investigation of the events leading up to January 6 and the day itself, the House of Representatives set up a special committee, which has been meeting for months. There has been some public testimony and there will probably be more coming soon. I try to hope that this will be helpful in showing what happened and why – and who was responsible for the violence and the lies that have weakened our country and its democratic norms.

It is obvious that Trump has been the loudest voice saying the elections are rigged, but his own words dating back to 2016 show that, for him, “rigged” equals I lost and “fair” equals I won. It has nothing to do with accurate counts of votes cast or fair voter registration and ballot access or lack of foreign interference.

What is even more disheartening is that the Republican party, which had an opportunity to stand up for the fairness of the election, our democratic system, and the Constitution, chose instead to undermine our government in a quest for power, even when that power is gained at the expense of the majority of our own citizens. While there have been a few brave Republicans who have stood up for the truth and for the Constitution – and many more who have abandoned the party altogether – most have supported the lies of the former president and have not voted for bills to help the country deal with the pandemic, the many needs of our people, and the strengthening of voting rights.

I am still in the UK visiting family on this first anniversary of the insurrection. If I were at home, I’d probably be watching coverage about it today, analyzing where the country stands and what the future might be. I would like to be hopeful, but I’m not. While I try to do what I can to spread facts, it doesn’t reach, let alone convince, those who have fallen victim to lies and conspiracy theories.

I will try, in the coming year, to do what I can to keep spreading facts, as will millions of others in their professional and personal lives, in hopes that we can get national voting rights legislation passed and that the Democrats can strengthen their majorities in order to govern more effectively. It’s probably too much to hope that the Republicans will decide to honor their oaths and help to govern, which is sad and frustrating and scary.

Who knows what the next year will bring and what January 6, 2023 will look like?
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/06/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-6th-2022/