It's hard to really gauge the pulse of sentiments regarding the January 6 insurrection hearings. My conservative American friends on facebook are unsurprisingly mute on the subject. It is hard to know how to react when you see conservative witnesses laying out the astonishing array of charges against Trump, many of them close allies.
Most of the charges we knew about, such as trying to get states not to certify the results, replacing electors with Trump supporters, and pressuring Pence into overturning the electoral college. But, now we are hearing it from Republican lawmakers like Rusty Bowers and Brad Raffensperger, whose states were literally under fire during the vote counting. Trump wanted these state officials to overturn the results in Arizona and Georgia, which Biden won by the thinnest of margins. We also heard from conservative representatives of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump similarly wanted to toss out the results of the general election and have the Republican-led state legislatures declare him the winner.
It would seem on the surface of things, Republicans are trying to reclaim their party from Trump, given how many Republicans have come forward to testify against the former president, including members within his inner circle. Still, Trump boasts of an ardent following. One that has become increasingly radicalized as we saw recently in Texas, where the GOP convention adopted a resolution that formally rejected the 2020 election results. As a result, the Republicans now face a deep fissure in their party heading into the mid term elections. One they had hoped to do well in and retake Congress. However, that no longer seems as likely as it did 6 months ago.
The major problem is that Trump won't go away. He continues to back extremist candidates and dubious celebrities that are not likely to fair well in the general election. The primary results have been split with Trump candidates losing key races in Georgia and North Carolina, but winning in places like Pennsylvania and Nevada where the GOP no longer is as strong as it was a few years ago. Probably the highest profile Trump candidate is Mehmet Oz, who scratched out a narrow Senate primary win in Pennsylvania, but has tacked so far to the right that he is trailing the Democrat John Fetterman in the state polls by as much as 9 points. That's a pretty big gap to overcome. Making matters worse for these Trumpists is that the investigation is pillorying Trump and making him increasingly more difficult to defend.
Trump is facing a mounting number of charges that cast him in the worst possible light. It wasn't just that he stoked the insurrection by exhorting his followers to march on the Capitol at the rally beforehand, but that he laid the groundwork for this insurrection months in advance with his allegations of voter fraud and attempts to overturn state elections across the country. To hear the witnesses that have come forward, they carried out these actions at his behest. After all, he was the Commander in Chief. Making matters worse, the House committee now has access to raw footage from a documentary that directly implicates him in many of the charges that have been leveled against him.
Probably the most damning testimony has been that Trump was fully aware he lost, but used the "Big Lie" as a means to further scam his supporters into donating money to his "election defense" fund. This is vintage Trump. He has long used charity and campaign funds for his own personal use, usually to cover legal expenses. This is probably the most audacious fraud of all. It is estimated that his campaign team raised over $250 million off the "Big Lie."
You can almost see the beads of sweat forming on Trump's forehead as he "demands equal time." He probably means on his favorite talk shows, not before the House committee investigating his alleged crimes, as what few lawyers he has left would strongly advise him against that. He's even had to face the ignominy of his own daughter testifying against him, resulting in yet another rebuke.
Fox News hosts are already starting to worry that this investigation will split Republicans in the midterms, painfully admitting that the testimony is real and damaging. Fox chose not to cover much of the investigation but given that it is the top story has no choice but to comment on it.
One would like to think this is the final nail in the coffin and that Trump and all those who enabled him throughout the tumultuous final months of his presidency will face criminal charges. The list is long. Just because officials close to his presidency, like former Attorney General Barr, testified against Trump they are still accountable. However, the House committee seems determined to take down Trump at this point. I imagine they wouldn't have gotten many of these damning testimonies had not the committee promised a certain amount of immunity to those who came forward like Barr. However, the Department of Justice has final say on such matters.
My biggest worry is that persons like Barr, Bowers and Raffensperger will come across as heroes simply for doing their jobs. We've heard the stories of how much pressure was put on them by Trump to defy the Constitution, which they had all sworn to uphold. However, there are no heroes in this debacle.
The entire GOP is tainted due to the fact that an astonishing number of Republicans voted against certifying the Electoral College despite the insurrection attempt. They were fully aware of the implications of their vote. Some of them literally egged on the protesters outside the Capitol before the attack. Every last one of them should be held accountable!
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