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Our founders built safeguards into our system of government to preserve our democratic process. But those safeguards require that men and women of goodwill—Americans elected to positions of public trust—put their duty to the Constitution above their party and above their loyalty to any one man.
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the lure of power that men and women who had once seemed reasonable and responsible were suddenly willing to violate their oath to the Constitution out of political expediency and loyalty to Donald Trump.
Elected officials who believe their own political survival is more important than anything else threaten the survival of our republic, no matter what they tell themselves to justify their cowardice.
political leaders do the same. Politicians who minimize the threat, repeat the lies, or enable the liar are not fit for office.
It was becoming clear that the truth no longer really mattered.
In the early hours of December 19, when the meeting finally ended, Donald Trump summoned his supporters to Washington, DC, tweeting: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
he vetoed a bill that authorized every program necessary for defending the United States because it didn’t include controversial language unrelated to defense.
I believe that Donald Trump’s decision to attack the lawfully certified Electoral College results and to ignore the rulings of our courts was an assault on the structural constitutional safeguards that keep us free.
Congress does not have the authority to undo an election by refusing to count state-certified electoral votes. Period.
By the end of December, it was clear that privately urging Trump to do the right thing was fruitless.
Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.
McCarthy was essentially telling members of Congress to ignore their constitutional obligations and, instead, do what Trump wanted.
these 11 senators were taking the position that because Donald Trump had successfully spread falsehoods about election fraud, and because a poll showed many people believed those falsehoods, Congress could refuse to do what the Constitution explicitly required.
As is typical for Cruz, he was grandstanding for his own benefit. It was one of the worst cases of abandonment of duty for personal ambition I’ve ever seen in Washington.
“Such is Republican politics of the moment, that presidential and congressional aspirants will purchase the former president’s blessing and approval at any price.”
If they objected to certified state electoral slates now, they would be doing so knowing that their actions were unconstitutional and knowing that the courts had already concluded there was no legal or factual basis for doing so.
“You were right. I thought this was just a clown show. Wrong. I mean, it IS a clown show, but it’s more sinister than I was prepared for.”
Having just lost a lawfully certified election, Trump was attempting to seize power unconstitutionally.
What Trump’s team was describing on this call was illegal. It was destructive. And they all knew by then that the stolen-election allegations were “complete nonsense” and “BS,” as Attorney General Barr and other Justice Department officials had repeatedly said. Yet here they were, trying it anyway.
Donald Trump was trying to prevent Congress from fulfilling our constitutional duty. He was trying to seize power through illegal and unconstitutional means. And some of my Republican colleagues were helping him.
Donald Trump lost in 2020 by more than 70 electoral votes. His nationwide popular-vote deficit of seven million represented a 5 percent gap—not even close.
by January 6, 2021, Donald Trump had consumed a good portion of almost every day in a rage: inventing and spreading lies about election fraud, preying on the patriotism of his supporters, and telling them they had to “fight like hell” if they wanted to save their country.
The president of the United States was attempting to utilize an angry crowd as a weapon
People died on January 6 because of Donald Trump’s lies. Had it not been for the actions of courageous members of law enforcement, many more lives likely would have been lost.
Kevin McCarthy lacked the courage and the honor to abide by his oath to the Constitution. This wasn’t leadership. It was cowardice, and it was craven. I wanted no part of it. I got up and walked out of the House chamber.
An American president willing to do those things was a threat unlike any we had ever faced before—a direct threat to the foundations of our republic.
Major corporate donors were threatening to cut off campaign contributions
“examine and report upon the facts and causes relating to the domestic terrorist attack of January 6th, 2021.”
The Republican bill called January 6 a “domestic terrorist attack” because that’s what we all believed it was.
in the immediate aftermath of the attack, virtually no one was pretending that January 6 was not a profoundly dangerous event.
Kevin McCarthy’s chief counsel, Machalagh Carr, forwarded a Twitter thread by attorney Seth Abramson that analyzed Trump’s Ellipse speech and concluded that the speech constituted “incitement.” Abramson called the speech “one of the most dangerous presidential addresses in American history.” Carr said his analysis “should be required reading for all House Republicans.”
We had a few days of clarity where most of the House Republican Conference was ready to either impeach or censure Donald Trump—to condemn him and his actions. And most Republicans recognized that a detailed investigation was necessary. This moment wouldn’t last.
There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.
When he was asked if he had any regrets about his vote to impeach, Meijer said, “Not one. I would rather lose office with my character intact than stay reelected having made sacrifices of the soul.”
“Democracy is a fragile thing, and the one thing we have to protect us from tyranny is our Constitution. Our Constitution has to be protected at all costs.”
I suspect that some in Washington believed impeaching Donald Trump was enough. They thought that, after all that had happened, he would no longer be a force in American politics. This was wishful thinking—and a serious miscalculation.
Narrated by Tucker Carlson, Patriot Purge seemed to be a purposeful effort at misinformation. It made false and incendiary claims suggesting that federal agents had incited the January 6 attack in order to entrap American citizens.
Yet Fox News’s leadership decided to air it anyway. Lies about the January 6 attack were apparently acceptable programming; the truth about the election was not.
Despite this tragic reminder of the violence of January 6, some House Republicans were already working to whitewash what had happened.
accused me of not “riding for the brand.”
Guys, I think we’re confused. Liz’s statement did not cause the problems we face. It didn’t cause the thousands of registered Republicans in Arizona, or South Carolina, or Georgia to move over. What caused that was the president throwing a two-month temper tantrum after the election on November third, which culminated in a ransacking of the Capitol and the death of one, maybe three, Capitol Police officers. The president sat in the White House surrounded by Secret Service, tweeting that Mike Pence was a coward, and watching TV, and couldn’t be bothered to answer calls for help.
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In concept, the House Republican Conference could have moved away from Trump and returned to the normal way a conservative party operates. But not if our leadership remained dependent on Trump for fundraising. Both things could not happen at the same time.
The GOP was becoming an anti-Constitution party. And too many of our leaders were willing to accept that.
“Trump tried to overturn an election. He went to war with the rule of law. He violated his oath to the Constitution.” Kilmeade didn’t dispute any of that. “I know,” he said. “But what if he is our only hope to beat Kamala?” I was surprised Kilmeade was so direct. Were we really going to torch the Constitution to beat the Democrats? Trump had done things we could not ignore. He had shown he was too dangerous to play a role in our politics. I wasn’t willing to give him a second chance to do it all again.
If you attack the judicial process and you attack the rule of law, you aren’t defending the Constitution; you’re at war with the Constitution.
a free society that abandons the truth—that abandons the rule of law—cannot remain free.
To remain in House Republican leadership, I would have to abandon the truth and embrace Trump’s ongoing efforts to unravel our democracy. That wasn’t a price I was willing to pay.
I wanted to convey the urgency of the moment, the threat we were facing, and the solemn obligation we had to put duty above partisanship. And I wanted to talk about the cost of silence.
It can be tough to learn that you’ve been fooled, tricked by those you trusted. That you let yourself be deceived. The natural reaction is denial, and a refusal to listen to anything to the contrary.
Millions of Americans were drowning in ridiculous lies. They had no idea what actually happened—why it was wrong, why it was so destructive for our country.
