“I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American that we were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”
So spoke Trump White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, as she testified under oath before the Jan. 6 Select Committee.
Hutchinson had been asked by Rep. Liz Cheney how she felt when she had seen Trump’s tweet that day about Vice President Pence not having the “courage” to do Trump’s illegal bidding. The former President sent that tweet even after he had learned the angry mob was armed and headed for the Capitol.
Hutchinson’s testimony is particularly compelling because she is a rock-solid Republican, who served as a top assistant to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. As such, she was immersed in the day-to-day reality of the Trump White House. Her poised, professional demeanor stood in stark contrast to the petulant, violent and sinister behaviors she witnessed on display by the 45th President.
The former Trump staffer confirmed Trump knew that the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were armed, with firearms and other weapons. Still, Trump incited the mob by saying, “march to the Capitol,” and ‘fight like hell.” When a White House attorney explicitly told Trump not to use that language, for legal reasons, Trump stormed, “I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” When he was informed the Secret Service was using metal-detecting magnetometers to screen protesters for guns, Trump said, “Take the f-ing mags away.”
The testimony by Hutchinson also confirmed the wretched remarks Trump made about Pence’s safety. She was present for a conversation between Meadows and Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cippolone. As the insurrection raged, the lawyer expressed to Meadows his alarm at the mob’s chants of “Hang Mike Pence” Referencing the conversation they had just had with the President, Meadows said, “You heard it, Pat. [Trump] thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re (the mob) doing anything wrong.”
Moreover, Hutchinson, speaking under penalty of perjury, described how Trump was desperate to join the mob’s attack on the Capitol, even as staffers and lawyers told him he could not. Cippolone told Hutchinson, “We’ll be charged with every crime imaginable (if Trump goes to the Capitol).” But Trump was so intent on joining the assault that he kept demanding that the Secret Service allow him to accompany the mob. When the Secret Service agent driving the President’s SUV explained he could not safely do so, the agents involved told Hutchinson that Trump said, “I’m the f-ing president. Take me up to the Capitol – now.” According to the agents, Trump then grabbed the steering wheel, and lunged at the agent with his free hand. To be clear, none of these accounts have been contradicted by testimony under oath.
So a power-mad, ranting leader of the government watched approvingly as an armed mob attacked the nation’s seat of government, an attack that he himself had been fomenting and encouraging for months.
The head of state had no problem with the crowd’s chant to execute the second in command. That same leader instructed security personnel to allow the irate mob to bring guns to the halls of the legislature. He desperately attempted to physically join the marauders as they invaded the government’s buildings. If these events transpired anywhere else-literally, any other country-every lawmaker, regardless of party, would call it by what it was: an attempted coup; a violent attempt to overturn a democratic election.
But what does the GOP say about it? The Republican National Committee not only censured the patriotic Republicans who are members of the Select Committee, it specifically characterized the attempted coup as “legitimate political discourse.” Republican lawmakers have repeatedly referred to those who have been criminally charged for participating in an armed attack on our Capitol as “political prisoners.” That’s what they say in public, at least.
But the Committee has revealed that numerous Republicans were asking Trump for pardons. To name a few, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump’s crooked coup lawyer John Eastman, all pushed for pardons from Trump. But if you haven’t done anything illegal, why would you need a pardon?
The point is, Republicans have known all along that Trump was an aspiring despot who cared nothing about the government beyond how he and his family could profit from it or be empowered by it. The hearings have demonstrated, once these Republicans are under oath, that they knew there was no election fraud; they knew the “stop the steal” fiction was a way to outrage their base; they knew that Trump had attempted a coup, but it was in their political interests to continue to lie about it.
And they’re still doing it. As of the end of May 2022, at least 108 candidates for statewide office or Congress have repeated Trump’s lies.
Pennsylvania’s GOP nominee for governor ran on a promise to award the state’s 19 electoral votes to the Republican nominee no matter whom the voters choose. Republicans in Congress still openly question the integrity of the election. Very few, if any, are willing to state the simple incontrovertible fact that Joe Biden is the legitimate President of the United States.
So let’s not mince words about the leaders in today’s Republican Party.
Like the courageous Cassidy Hutchinson, let’s call them for what they are: Disgusting. Unpatriotic. Un-American.
The La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club meets the first Wednesday of every month. Please join us for our Club meeting on Wednesday Aug. 3, 7 p.m., at the La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive in La Mesa. For more information, visit lamesafoothillsdemocraticclub.com
– Sean Quintal writes on behalf of the La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club.
