The House select committee on the Jan. 6 insurrection delivered impressive findings beyond its historic vote to refer to the Justice Department four serious felony allegations against former President Donald Trump.
It was a sad but essential duty. Regardless of politics, no American should delight in the prospect of our highest office being a gateway to a criminal courtroom and possibly prison. But the Constitution provides for it. The founders had no illusions about human nature.
If a deliberate scheme to nullify an election and overthrow our government doesn’t deserve prosecution, nothing ever would.
The report details how Trump was the “central cause” of the attack on Congress and the Capitol, “whom many others followed.” Importantly, it doesn’t stop there. It also lays out specific recommendations to protect our nation from being in such jeopardy again.
How seriously Congress takes those recommendations will depend on the Republicans who are about to take control of the House. It’s time for them to stop shilling for Trump and stand up for our country. With power comes responsibility. May it make a difference.
Electoral Count Act reform
One of the most important of those recommendations is already coming to fruition. The massive appropriations bill that has cleared Congress embodies reform of the 1887 Electoral Count Act. It clarifies that the role of a vice president in presiding over the counting of electoral votes is ministerial only, with no authority to reject any. It requires a fifth of each house to challenge a state’s electors rather than merely one member of each. It forbids legislatures from choosing electors after Election Day, as Trump tried to get several to do, and it establishes an expedited procedure for hearing legal challenges before three-judge panels.
The report says Congress should create a system for enforcing the 14th Amendment provision, inspired by the Civil War, that bars from federal office anyone who takes part in an insurrection after swearing to support the Constitution.
The report mentions House Concurrent Resolution 93, sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. The legislation declares that anyone involved in the Jan. 6 violence or trying in other ways to block the electoral vote count has violated that provision, but it doesn’t say who would enforce it. Logically, a federal court could; the committee’s report would be persuasive evidence. HCR 93 was introduced Nov. 1 and has not been heard. Its fate is another measure of the incoming Republican leadership.
The report also recommends more severe criminal penalties for actions that threaten the peaceful transfer of power or the safety of election workers, clarifying the House’s power to enforce its subpoenas, elevating the electoral count every fourth Jan. 6 to the same “national special security event” as an inaugural or State of the Union address, improved oversight of the Capitol Police, a close look at the policies of media companies that “have had the effect of radicalizing their consumers” and a “discussion” of the risk of a future president trying to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to stay in power, as leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers were urging Trump to do.
Trump is out of office — where he must remain — so he cannot be impeached again. Taking him to trial is necessary to complete the historical record, discourage any future president from trying to make himself a dictator and establish that no one is above the law.
At 964 and counting
At least 964 others have been charged with crimes related to the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and nearly 500 have already been convicted or pleaded guilty.
Abraham Lincoln, bemoaning the necessity of executing Union deserters during the Civil War, asked rhetorically: “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?”
Today’s wily agitator is Donald J. Trump.
Conviction for aiding an insurrection, the most serious of the charges, should also disqualify him for office under the 14th Amendment and clear the way for Republicans in 2024 to nominate a presidential candidate who wouldn’t need a bail bondsman.
No one should expect a SWAT team to be descending on Mar-a-Lago just yet. Whether to charge Trump, his consiglieri John Eastman and others named in the report are decisions that belong exclusively to the Justice Department, which should be sure of its case.
It surely would have been better for the investigation to have been carried out by an independent bipartisan commission as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wanted. But Republican leaders killed that, so they have no standing to bad-mouth the select committee’s work.
Patriots, not pariahs
The nation owes thanks to every member of the committee, particularly to departing Republican members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. They are pariahs in their party for their patriotism, but were faithful to the words of another Republican president, Rutherford B. Hayes: “He serves his party best who serves his country best.”
Another retiring member of the committee is Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., who couldn’t have performed a more valuable valedictory.
This is the first time a congressional investigation has led to a criminal referral of a former president. Trump would be the first to be indicted. Richard Nixon’s criminality in Watergate did not extend to trying to overthrow the government.
Trump himself confirmed that’s what he had in mind — and still does — in his recent Truth Social post calling for “termination” of anything, including the Constitution, that would stand in the way of his regaining power. His state of mind before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021, was plain. So too is what U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland should do about it.
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