Michael Gerson in the WaPost

 

The Jan. 6 committee’s riveting televised opening night might not have converted the pro-Trump revisionists, but it has left them without excuses. The evidence is overwhelming that a sitting president gathered a violent mob and charged it with intimidating members of Congress and his own vice president into illegally reversing the outcome of a presidential election on the basis of an obvious lie.

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There is only one narrative about Jan. 6 that history will accept: the evidence meticulously gathered and presented by the House select committee.

In some ways, pressing the case against former president Donald Trump is not hard, because he confirms its general outlines. He still seems to regard the riot as the highest expression of MAGA loyalty to his person. He still insists he should be reinstated as president. He still seems to believe then-Vice President Mike Pence was a weak-kneed traitor for refusing to overturn the constitutional order. Because Trump can’t admit error, he often effectively admits guilt.

The response of congressional Republican leaders to Thursday’s hearing — that it is more important to focus on inflation than sedition — has demonstrated their vast political and moral shallowness. The juxtaposition of testimony by U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards (“I was slipping in people’s blood”) and a tweet from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee account (“All. Old. News.”) was telling.

One imagines a 20-something GOP staffer straining (and failing) to be clever. The contrast between the police officer’s sacrifice and the tweeter’s infantile partisanship raises some questions: Is anyone teaching young Republicans that public service can be honorable and costly? Why doesn’t some mature public official shake these shills and urge silence in the presence of patriotic virtues they don’t possess?

Another comparison was obvious throughout the committee hearing: Trump and Pence. In his rambling, over an hour-long remarks to the “Stop the Steal” crowd, Trump pressured Pence to reverse the election’s outcome more than 10 times — then continued doing the same on Twitter. As the committee revealed, one of those tweets was relayed, via bullhorn, to the rioters, who took up the chant “Hang Mike Pence.” According to the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Trump was pleased by their stated intention. (The former president denied having said that.)

For several hours on that fateful day, Trump ceased to be the American president. He was an insurrectionary leader watching his work unfold in coordinated violence. He refused to take the advice of some of his closest advisers, who urged him to recall his forces from their assault on the Capitol. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, noted Trump’s absence in the chain of command. At a key moment, Trump was interested only in serving his wildly implausible mission of retaining power, not protecting the legislators, staff and police officers at the Capitol. In contrast, Pence attempted to take charge and fill the gap of leadership.

It is hard to heap praise on Pence. He was the loyal lieutenant to the worst president in history. But beneath a quivering mass of compromise, there was a core of principle, particularly in defending the Constitution. The same might be said of the otherwise egregious Attorney General William P. Barr, who dismissed the claim of widespread election fraud to Trump as so much barnyard excrement. Or White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who repeatedly threatened resignation over the worst Trump excesses.

What are we to make of such highly flawed men, driven at last to unexpected integrity? However we view them, the problem with a second Trump administration would be their absence. Over time, Trump grew better at purging officials who showed signs of independence and character. In a second term, officials would be screened for total loyalty — to Trump rather than the republic.

The final contrast highlighted in the first hearing was between Cheney and the absent House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy, you might remember, initially held Trump responsible for the attack on the Capitol and told colleagues he would raise the prospect of resignation with the president. This was followed by an abject and humiliating apology visit with Trump, McCarthy’s opposition to the Jan. 6 committee and his refusal to comply with a committee subpoena.

One darkly humorous moment in the evening’s video presentation came in the clip of McCarthy’s leadership office staffers fleeing in fear as the insurrection unfolded. It was the symbolic representation of a leader who stands for fear. Fear of provoking Trump’s ever-shifting anger. Fear of offending the MAGA lunatics in his own caucus. Fear of showing the slightest hint of independent thought, which might cost him a chance at the House speaker’s crown. Whatever his political future, McCarthy will be remembered as his generation’s most pathetic, unprincipled and contemptible political figure.

Compare him with Cheney during the hearing. She was calm, methodical, factual and morally grounded — fully aware of the political risks that may come on the road of duty, and courageously prepared to accept them. She is our indomitable, irreplaceable, unsinkable Liz.