Ocommittee Jan. 6 is just getting started

Like prosecutors priming a jury, the House Select Committee made a powerful case to the nation Thursday night that Donald Trump ginned up the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. He meant it to consummate a coup that he had been plotting even before the presidential election that he legitimately lost.

The riot that bloodied police officers bravely protecting the Capitol and led to the deaths of five of them was not spontaneous. It was not a one-off event. There was, as Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee chair, said, “a sprawling, multi-step conspiracy” with Trump “at the center.”

Trump is still acting out his treachery to the Constitution and the American people, peddling his Big Lie and slandering the committee. The insurrection, he declared beforehand, was “the greatest movement in the history of our country to make America great again.”

Lying is not necessarily a crime, but sedition is. It is a grave felony, a disqualification for future public office. For what happened before, on and after Jan. 6, Trump must be tried and convicted in the criminal courts, not just in the venue of public opinion.

A clear and present danger

Until he is, and because the Senate failed to convict and bar him from running again when he was impeached a second time, he remains a clear and present danger to the Constitution he falsely swore to protect. He is a threat to the peace of the nation and to democracy here and throughout the world.

Trump primed the riot by denouncing his vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to discard enough electoral votes to deny Joe Biden and Kamala Harris their fairly won victory.

When Trump heard that the mob was chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” this is what he said, as related by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, the committee’s vice chair: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it.”

That wasn’t the only breathtaking moment from the first committee hearing, which will continue Monday:

In videotaped testimony, former Attorney General William Barr said he told Trump three times that there was no evidence of a stolen election. He referred to the claim as “bulls—t.”

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, testified that she respected Barr and believed him.

The top leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers were filmed meeting together the night of Jan. 5. They had responded to Trump’s tweet, “Be there. It will be wild.” Proud Boys, some outfitted for combat, began moving toward the Capitol Jan. 6 before Trump actually urged it to an audience at the Ellipse. Videotape showed some rioters saying they believed they were doing what Trump wanted. It documents his guilt.

The riveting testimony of Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards put to shame the farcical claims that it was a “normal tourist visit” or an exercise protected by the First Amendment. “What I saw was just a war scene,” she said. “It was carnage, it was chaos, I can’t even describe what I saw.”

Cheney said several Republican congressmen sought pardons from Trump after Jan. 6, including Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who denied it as a “lie.” Perry was a link between Trump and Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official angling to succeed Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and put the Justice Department behind Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. That was a conspiracy. The committee should identify the other congressmen who begged Trump for a pardon.

Cheney, a pariah in her party for heroically supporting Trump’s impeachment and serving on the panel, memorably denounced those “defending the indefensible” and warned them: “There will come a day when President Trump is gone. But your dishonor will remain.”

That apparently was an ad lib. It wasn’t in her prepared remarks as released before the hearing, but it needed to be said.

A fascist cult

Apart from Cheney and a few others, the Republican Party in Congress has taken on the character of a fascist cult in thrall to a tyrannical leader. Whether for fear or the lust for favor doesn’t matter. Nearly 150 of them, including 13 from Florida, voted to reject Biden electors as Trump and the mob had demanded. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Ted Cruz and others continue to belittle the investigation. By covering up for him, they are accomplices to his sedition.

Whatever reasons might compel voters to return that party to power in Congress this fall, the hearings have already demonstrated the danger in that. Future hearings deserve watching as much as the opener.

In an eerie coincidence, Friday, June 17, will be the 50th anniversary of the burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at Washington’s Watergate complex that exposed the nation’s last great constitutional crisis.

As in the latest one, the precipitating crime of Watergate was not an isolated offense. During televised hearings, Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn., memorably asked: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

At that moment, Baker was hoping to exonerate Richard Nixon. But along with most other Senate Republicans, he left his mind open to the emerging evidence of presidential crimes. Today, most Republicans in Congress deny what’s obvious. They’ve helped Trump persuade most party voters that Biden’s presidency is illegitimate, which is subversive.

The key question now: What did the president do, and when did he do it?

In 1974, Nixon left peacefully after a delegation of Republican senators told him he’d lost their support. Trump incited a violent insurrection to stay in power and is still trying to claw his way back.

No other president ever attempted any such things. Voters must not give him or his acolytes another chance, no matter what other issues may come to mind.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.