Syndicated columnist Debra J. Saunders: Trump's last days of Pompeii
The base believes President Donald Trump won in 2020 in part because the base thinks that Trump believes he won in 2020. The House Jan. 6 report, produced by an overwhelmingly Democratic committee, however, documents the many times Trump was informed that his claims of fraud were bogus, but he repeated them anyway.
For example, Trump signed "a knowingly false representation" to a federal court in a case involving Georgia, wrote U.S. District Court Judge David Carter.
"The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong," wrote Carter, "but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public."
The legal strategy seems designed to appeal to a base that believes in fraud, not courts that demand evidence. Crazy-car attorney John Eastman, the report noted, "all but admitted that (his plan) didn't work" and likely would fail 9-0 if before the Supreme Court.
Long time aides began to divide campaign lawyering into two groups.
"Team Normal" was the phrase former campaign manager Bill Stepien used to distinguish professional aides from the Trump "Clown Car" - a phrase dubbed by former Attorney General Bill Barr. As Trump continued to push his Big Lie, Team Normal (Barr, Stepien) stepped back, and the Clown Car (attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell) took the lead.
A former Trump official told New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi, "(t)here were always weird people around him, but the more the normal people disappeared, and all he's surrounded by are the cuckoo birds."
As Trump was trying to push DOJ lawyers to act against their instincts and put a sycophant at the helm, department lawyers threatened to quit and leave the department a "graveyard."
In TrumpWorld, there were always unqualified people ready to step in. "Body man" - read: nonlawyer - John McEntee wrote a one-pager that argued that the vice president "has substantial discretion to address issues with the electoral process."
As someone who covered the Trump White House for all four years, I am struck by all the many one-time staffers who refused to parrot the Big Lie. For the most part, their names aren't well-known outside the Beltway, but they started out with enthusiasm, they rooted for the boss to win in 2020, and probably never thought the day would come when the Trump base would dismiss them as traitors and RINOs. And yet, Trump's insistence on pulling everyone behind his Big Lie brought them to this moment.
After Jan. 6, 2021, the love was gone. When I visited the White House, the press office was a ghost town. In the lower press office - a once bustling hub of young aides with promising futures before them - desks were empty. Likewise, the more prestigious upper press office had become a cavern.
Katrina Pierson captured the turn of events when she texted campaign Big Foot-lookalike Brad Parscale, after he claimed to be shocked a woman died during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Pierson responded, "You do realize this was going to happen."
Mark Corallo, public relations consultant who worked in the Justice Department under Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft, told me he didn't read the report and considered the exercise "grossly partisan."
"I have a great idea," Corallo said of Trump, "ignore the dude." He's not going to be the GOP nominee in 2024. "He's never going to be president again, and the more we talk about him, the more life we give him." And "The guy in the Viking Hat" was never going to overthrow the United States government.
I'm not as sanguine about what might have been. Then Vice President Mike Pence spent hours in the Capitol loading dock as the crazies stormed the Capitol. He refused Secret Service entreaties to get into a car because he feared agents would ignore his orders - he wanted to stay on the premises so that he could certify the electors' vote - and try to move the vice president, his wife, Karen, and daughter Charlotte out of harm's way.
Trump was safe in the West Wing slamming Pence for lacking "courage" while Pence stayed in the same building where a hopped-up mob wanted to destroy him.
Pence stayed so that he could recognize state electors on Jan. 6. (It turns out the vote was not completed until the wee hours of Jan. 7.)
I cannot help but wonder, what would have happened if the vice president's motorcade had left the Capitol. Would a Pence exit have been seen as a green light for the faithful to storm what they saw as America's Bastille?
One-time Special Assistant to the President Cassidy Hutchinson testified, Trump told agents, "I don't (expletive) care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the (expletive) (magnetometers) away. Let my people in."
In a disaster movie, Trump would be the character who claws between mothers and children for a seat on the lifeboat.
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