The sixth televised hearing of the January 6th Committee presented damning new evidence from a top Trump White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, of how Trump and his MAGA allies knowingly sent a mob armed with AR-15s, pistols, and spears to the Capitol in a desperate attempt to hold onto power. MAGA Republicans in Congress, Rudy Giuliani, and even White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows all sought pardons for their roles in what they knew to be an illegal, unconstitutional conspiracy. In think pieces and editorials, experts are overwhelmingly finding that Republicans were complicit in Trump’s scheme all along —and still are. The Select Committee continues to lay out the evidence proving that Trump and MAGA Republicans knowingly encouraged armed insurrection, and want to position themselves to be able to overturn the will of the people in future elections.
Editorials
LA Times Editorial Board: These California Congressmen Betrayed Voters On Jan. 6: “These eight senators and 139 House members were in the Capitol that day because voters elected them to run our representative democracy. And yet they outrageously defied the will of American voters by refusing to certify Joe Biden’s election. Voters must hold them to account for this betrayal.” [LA Times, 6/22/22]
Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board: Jan. 6 Witnesses Show Us What It Really Means To Be A Patriot. “It is remarkable that so many public servants at the highest level of government refuse to serve the public or the law by appearing before the committee. Even the Republican leaders of Congress itself, most notably House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, have refused to participate in honest, unscripted fact finding. Instead, Republicans in leadership have painted the hearings as a witch hunt…Despite McCarthy’s lack of leadership, Kinzinger and Cheney, the former House Republican chair defied McCarthy and joined the committee anyway. […] In her quiet yet courageous dignity, Hutchinson shows the way back to sanity for the GOP. […] We also call on the rest of the Republican Party, and especially those traitors who refused to stand for democracy to follow this young woman’s lead, and be brave enough to share your story, your knowledge, your experiences, in service to the American public and the Constitution you swore an oath to uphold. [Las Vegas Sun, 6/30/22]
Washington Post Editorial Board: Jan. 6 Testimony Shows That Donald Trump Is Unhinged. Voters Must Listen. ”Politicians Americans elect in 2022 will be in place to enable — or stop — another coup attempt in 2024. Many Republican candidates have signaled their willingness to abet more sedition…Republicans of goodwill who still remain must find the political courage to buck the radical election deniers in their ranks and make their chief priority the promotion of pro-democracy candidates and policies. That starts with passing critical election reforms through the Senate and bolstering the democratic system against another Trumpian attack.” [Washington Post, 6/28/22]
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: More Testimony On Trump’s Jan. 6 Tirade. “Republicans can’t afford to look away from the accumulating evidence of his conduct… from the considerable evidence [the committee] is producing about Mr. Trump’s behavior that would surely be relevant to voters if he runs in 2024.” [Wall Street Journal, 6/28/22]
Chicago Sun Times Editorial Board: Trump’s Corruption On Jan. 6 Becomes Clearer In Riveting New Testimony. “Republicans who refused in the early part of Trump’s tenure to acknowledge his unstable behavior because he gave them what they wanted stand further indicted after Tuesday’s hearing. They also are to blame for refusing to remove Trump from office when he was impeached a second time after the Jan. 6 assault. They ducked their responsibility to send a signal that future coup attempts will not be tolerated, and that our democracy is more important than an unhinged leader’s power-hungry ego.” [Chicago Sun Times, 6/28/22]
Opinion Pieces
New York Times Opinion By Bret Stephens: Will the Jan. 6 Committee Finally Bring Down the Cult of Trump?. “Maybe this is where the cult of Trump will begin to crack. […] Either you love Trump or you are an enemy of the people. Either you want to Make America Great Again or you hate America. Either you accept that Trump is always right, even when he contradicts your deepest values — or when he contradicts himself — or you are deficient in loyalty to him and hatred of his enemies. Either you stick with Trump or you’re a Republican in name only, a RINO, and we know what Trump loyalists like Missouri’s Eric Greitens plan to do with RINOs.” [New York Times, 6/28/22]
Washington Post Opinion By Dana Milbank: Those Ignoring The Jan. 6 Revelations Are Guaranteeing More Violence. “We didn’t arrive at this precarious moment solely because of Trump. Trump couldn’t have happened if Fox News and Republican elites hadn’t normalized his threats to democratic traditions. Now they continue to do so with their breezy dismissal of the breathtaking revelations of the Jan. 6 hearings. […] The pendulum of history is swinging toward the autocratic, at home and abroad, and Republican elites are nattering about “the needle” of short-term partisan gain. […] In doing so, they are effectively guaranteeing more violence. And no side is immune from the growing threat, as the arrest of a man planning to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh reveals. […] And all who are silent now are complicit in assuring that the horrors of Jan. 6 will recur.” [Washington Post, 6/21/22]
Stories
The Atlantic: A Dangerous, Deranged, Seditious President. “For the past half-dozen years, the Republican Party and the American right—with a very few honorable exceptions—stood with Trump, defended him, and attacked his critics. Some went silent in the face of his indecency and lawlessness; many others gleefully promulgated his lies and conspiracy theories. Together they attempted to annihilate truth on his behalf, in his name, for their party, to seize and to hold power…Hutchinson’s testimony was a withering indictment of America’s 45th president. But it was also, if less directly, an indictment of his party, his supporters, his acolytes, those who went silent and those who spoke up on his behalf.” [The Atlantic, 6/29/22]
The Atlantic: Kevin McCarthy, Have You No Sense of Decency? “The Republicans do not have to be the cover-up party. That’s a choice. In fact, the story of the hearings has been the courage and integrity of many individual Republicans, culminating most spectacularly with the heroic testimony of the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. But as an institution, the party has, to date, made a pro-Trump cover-up its policy. This policy of protecting the ex-president involves excusing the worst political crime in the history of the presidency—what looks more and more like a fully planned attempt to hold on to the highest office in the land, first by fraud, then by force. A coup d’état.” [The Atlantic, 6/28/22]
The Daily Beast: The Entire GOP Is Complicit In The Coup Attempt. “Hutchinson, a former top aide to Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, unleashed an arsenal of smoking guns. She not only implicated the Trump administration but exposed the entire right-wing ecosystem as active and willing participants in a failed authoritarian’s desire to use violence, intimidation, and illegality to ensure power for his radicalized MAGA movement that has now consumed the GOP and replaced all “rational” Republicans.” [The Daily Beast, 6/29/22]
The Daily Beast: Republicans in Congress: Hearings? What Hearings? “Amid the cable TV and social media frenzy that unfolded before, during, and after Hutchinson’s testimony, Republican members of Congress were largely silent. One reason why is hardly a secret: When it comes to Jan. 6, silence has always been the safest political option for the vast majority of Republicans.” [The Daily Beast, 6/30/22]
New York Magazine: Republicans Are Trying To Cover Up The Greatest Political Scandal In American History The Gop Still Won’t Admit It Even Deserves To Be Investigated. “It is all the more striking, then, that the Republican Party stance was, and is, that none of this should be investigated…Republicans have responded to the stream of revelations by dismissing them as boring and partisan. Their party-controlled media have either ignored the hearings, engaged in frantic whataboutism, or supplied talking points to distract from the damning news. They have turned against the only members of their party willing to participate in the hearings, branding them as traitors…Republicans could have made cooperating with the committee the safe choice. Instead, they have made it dangerous.” [New York Magazine, 6/28/22]
What People Are Saying about the GOP Remaining Silent in the Face of New Evidence
Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney: GOP can’t be loyal to both Trump and the Constitution: The U.S. faces a domestic threat it’s never faced before — a former president who’s “attempting to unravel the foundations of our Constitutional Republic … aided by Republican leaders and elected officials,” the vice chair of the House panel investigating the Capitol riot said at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. “It is undeniable — the Republican Party cannot be both loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.” [Axios, 6/30/22]
Al Schmidt, Former City Commissioner of Philadelphia: “Two weeks ago, I testified before the @January6thCmte. My experience doesn’t begin to compare to the courage shown by Cassidy Hutchinson today. Meanwhile, cowards hide. If they truly love America, they should follow her lead and do the right thing. Democracy demands courage.” [@Commish_Schmidt, 6/28/22]
Bill Kristol, The Bulwark Editor-At-Large: “Will any senior Republican elected official demonstrate a tiny fraction of the courage of Cassidy Hutchinson, and step forward now to say, simply, that Donald Trump should never again be president?” [@BillKristol, 6/28/22]
John Harwood, CNN White House Correspondent, “Donald Trump couldn’t have done any of this without the Republican Party. The Republican Party nominated him, elected him, enabled his behavior for four years. In two impeachments, the Republican Party absolved him of historically-extreme wrongdoing obvious to anyone w/eyes open.” [@JohnJHarwood, 6/28/22]
Mick Mulvaney, Chief of Staff to former President Trump: “A stunning 2 hours: 1)Trump knew the protesters had guns 2)He assaulted his own security team 3)There may be a line from ProudBoys to the WH 4)Top aides asked for pardons 5)The commission thinks they have evidence of witness tampering. That is a very, very bad day for Trump.” [@MickMulvaney, 6/28/22]
The Republican Accountability Project: “The sad reality is that many Republicans will continue to support Trump no matter what is revealed in these hearings.” [@AccountableGOP, 6/28/22]
Sarah Longwell, Republican political strategist & The Bulwark Publisher: “I know it sounds like what you’re hearing is an indictment of Trump, and it is, but it’s also an indictment of every Republican—in congress and out—who supported and excused this despicable, thoroughly dishonorable man.” [@SarahLongwell25, 6/28/22]
Sol Wisenberg, former deputy to Ken Starr: “This is the smoking gun…There isn’t any question this establishes a prima facie case for his criminal culpability on seditious conspiracy charges.” [@PeterBakerNYT, 6/28/22]
