Republican lies and slanders respond to the 1/6 Committee hearing

The ex-president truly has poisoned the entire GOP leadership. They are morally rotted along with the other anti-democracy and anti-truth Republican elites. The New York Times writes:

Republicans Try to Undercut Jan. 6 Committee With Inaccurate Claims

Before public hearings begin, Republican lawmakers sought to portray the panel as illegitimate.

Hours before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot opens its public hearings, Republican lawmakers sought to portray the panel as illegitimate. In a news conference, they denounced the committee’s formation, its work and Speaker Nancy Pelosi with inaccurate claims. Here’s a fact check.

WHAT WAS SAID

“It has been caught altering evidence, including the text messages of our ranking member Jim Jordan.” — Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, in a news conference on Thursday

This is exaggerated. This was a reference to a text message presented at a meeting of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. The text was not presented in full, but no words were altered.

The committee met in December to recommend a criminal contempt charge for Mark Meadows, the last White House chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump, for defying its subpoena.

During the meeting, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, read and presented a text that an unnamed lawmaker had sent to Mr. Meadows: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

A few days later, the conservative publication The Federalist reported that the text had come from Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, who had forwarded it to Mr. Meadows; the message originally came from a lawyer contending that the vice president had the legal authority to decertify votes.

The full text read: ​​“On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence. ‘No legislative act,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, ‘contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.’ The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: ‘That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.’ 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916). Following this rationale, an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally enacted statute, is no elector at all.”

A spokesman for the committee acknowledged truncating the text and apologized for doing so.  

WHAT WAS SAID

“Was Speaker Pelosi involved in the decision to delay National Guard assistance on Jan. 6? Those are serious and real questions that this committee refuses to even ask. Speaker Pelosi doesn’t want to answer those questions because she knows that the answers to those questions leave a trail of bread crumbs right back to her office, underscoring her negligence, her lack of leadership as the speaker of the House.” — Mr. Banks, at the same news conference

This is misleading. For over a year, Republican and conservative commentators have repeatedly and misleadingly blamed Ms. Pelosi for the delay in deploying the National Guard to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

There is no evidence that Ms. Pelosi’s office rejected a request to deploy the National Guard, or even played a role in any delays over approval. The decision lies with the Capitol Police Board, which includes the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the architect of the Capitol.

A report by two bipartisan Senate committees investigating the Jan. 6 attack attributed delays in requesting the National Guard to “opaque processes.” It noted that the members of the Capitol Police Board were not familiar with the approval process, and gave conflicting accounts of when assistance was first requested.

The Republican strategy and tactics are clear. So is the mindset and intent. Republican elites do not care about anything except power and winning it by all means, including committing and supporting treason. Lies, slanders and exaggerations are routine. That is how low the GOP has sunk. 

The moral rot of the Republican Party is complete. It is hard to see how it can go back to respectability after all of this. We are in an all-out war of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties against neo-fascism, oppression and the rule of the thug.

If a third party does not rise in the coming years, that would be a sign that democracy has fallen to the neo-fascists.