Here’s what passes for bravery in today’s GOP: silence.
Unfortunate as that is, saying nothing is inarguably better than saying things that are untrue, and that are especially dangerous in this volatile moment.
In the current context, then, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran could almost be seen as brave for so far saying nothing at all about Donald Trump’s indictment for serious crimes, while so many of his Republican colleagues spew lies about the supposed “grave injustice” of the former president’s situation.
Their echo of Trump’s own call to rally around him could very well lead to violence, just as it did on Jan. 6.
If Moran were truly courageous, of course, he would not just refrain from repeating lies but would refute them.
The senator often says that it’s important that Americans have confidence in our judicial system.
But how can they, with so many of his party’s leaders at least pretending to believe that Trump is being pursued for purely political reasons, instead of for the many good reasons spelled out in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment?
Former Trump attorney general William P. Barr is so far one of the few voices on the right who has dared to say this. “If even half of it is true, he’s toast,” Barr said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It is a very detailed indictment and it’s very, very damning.”
Moran isn’t the kind of politician who would even try to shout down someone like defeated Arizona Republican loudmouth Kari Lake, who doesn’t seem to care if blood is shed in defense of the former president. His indictment is seen by her, and in the conservative echo chamber, as “illegitimate.”
“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” who are NRA members, Lake has said. She also said this: “We’re at war, people — we’re at war.”
Could some mentally unstable people take her talk about war literally? We know they could.
And even quiet recognition, from someone as careful as Moran, that the Department of Justice has not been “weaponized,” would mean something.
Why single him out? Why urge Moran to fact check his colleagues, especially when he’s so temperamentally unlikely to do so?
Because he could still rise to the moment.
Because he’s our only representative in the U.S. Senate who might, since as we’ve already pointed out, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and Missouri Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt are among those putting out disinformation about why the former president is facing charges.
And finally, because a few truthful words from him on this subject would matter.
