In the wake of Donald Trump’s scandalous Jan. 6 presidential pardon of criminals — including violent criminals who attacked police officers — many Republicans in Congress responded to questions with an evasive, seemingly forward-looking answer.
For example, Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, his party’s new Senate majority leader, said, “We’re looking to the future, not the past.” His counterpart on the other side of Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson, similarly told reporters this week: “We’re not looking back, we’re looking forward.”
It’s a deeply flawed approach for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Republican lawmakers already launched yet another investigation of their own on January 6, which is largely the opposite of “looking to the future.”
Complicating matters further, the president who granted the outrageous pardon doesn’t seem particularly eager to move on either. The New York Times reported:
President Trump said Thursday he would be “open” to the idea of meeting with some of the nearly 1,600 criminal defendants accused of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to whom he this week issued a sweeping form of granted leniency. week. Mr. Trump’s comments came during a televised session in the Oval Office. … During the signing session, Mr. Trump was asked if he had plans to meet with any of the January 6 defendants — perhaps even at the White House.
“I would certainly be open to it,” the Republican replied.
He added that as far as he was concerned, the January 6 thugs were simply “protesting an unfair election.”
First, the election was not “lopsided.” Second, hundreds of people Trump pardoned were not just “protesting,” but were violently attacking police officers during an insurrectionist riot.
But just as important as the president’s obvious and lazy lies is the fact that, instead of moving beyond some of the most outrageous pardons in American history, the Republican continues to oppose the abuse.
About a year ago, an Associated Press report noted that Trump had positioned “the violent siege and failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election” as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House. This coincided with a related Semafor report on the extent to which the Republican had placed the January 6 rioters “at the heart of his campaign.”
A year later, the cornerstone of his candidacy has become the cornerstone of the first part of his presidency.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com