Opinion | January 6th Committee hints at a failed

‘congressional coup’
By John Stoehr - Commentary
Published July 14, 2022

Gage Skidmore.

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The J6 committee did not explicitly accuse Donald Trump of the federal crime of
seditious conspiracy. But after its seventh hearing Tuesday, lasting over three hours,
it damn well looked that way.

Ditto for some Republicans.

Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, a J6 committee member, said that 10

House Republicans convened at the White House on December 21, 2020, to discuss
an illegal legal theory by law professor John Eastman, according to which the vice
president could reject the certification of electoral votes or return them to state
legislatures.

READ MORE: 'Nice self-own': Matt Gaetz mocked for criticizing John Bolton's coup
confession

Present at that meeting were the following, Murphy said: US Reps. Matt Gaetz*, Andy
Biggs*, Brian Babin, Jody Hice, Louie Gohmert*, Andy Harris, Mo Brooks*, Paul
Gosar*, Scott Perry* and Jim Jordan. Margaret Taylor Greene*, representative-elect,
was there. So were Mike Pence, Mark Meadows* and Rudy Giuliani*, Murphy said.
(The asterisk indicates who among them later asked Trump for a pardon.)

Murphy said it was important to explain that Eastman’s legal theory was illegal.
Why? Because Republicans in the House and Senate “were looking for reasons to
object.” The thinking appears to be that with a sufficient number of congressional
Republicans objecting to the electoral count, which is to say, voting to overturn the
results of the 2020 election, they could keep Trump in the White House.

These 10 Republicans have not gotten as much attention as they deserve. (Neither
have the 137 other Republicans who voted to object.) That’s understandable. The J6
committee has uncovered a dogpile of material evidence of the walking crime scene
that is the former president. But these co-conspirators deserve a moment.

Congressional coup

READ MORE: 'He’s gonna get pulverized': Mark Meadows facing major legal peril

Recall that the goal was pressuring the vice president, state election authorities and
senior officials in the Department of Justice to go along with overturning the
election. “Just say it’s corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressman,”
Trump allegedly said.

If Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, rejected the electoral votes, alleging that
they were the product of widespread voter fraud, the election process would return to
the states, where Eastman had said Republican majorities could assign their own
slates of electors for Trump in spite of 8 million more people having voted for Joe
Biden.

Eastman believed state legislatures could trump democracy

Eastman believed state legislatures could trump democracy.

Now apply that theory to the US Congress.

READ MORE: The Jan. 6 committee has presented 'excruciatingly detailed' proof that
Trump planned a coup: conservative

The Republicans “ in the House and Senate,” Murphy said, planned to vote against
accepting Joe Biden’s electors. All they needed was a good reason, she said. The
Republicans had a majority in the Senate. Could the Senate have done what Eastman
said GOP legislatures could do – and trump the democratic will of the American
people?

Call it a congressional coup.

Voting against democracy

Which brings us back to the meeting on December 21, 2020.

READ MORE: 'It takes a lot of work': John Bolton says Donald Trump was too lazy to
lead a genuine coup on January 6th

Matt Gaetz gave an account to Steven Bannon’s podcast. He said that he and the
other Republicans tried persuading Mike Pence to reject the electoral votes. Gaetz
said that, “we were in the Cabinet Room meeting with Mike Pence in the days leading
up to January 6, and I left quite disappointed that he was not motivated by our
argument.”

That’s because it wasn’t an argument.

Murphy said House and Senate Republicans never got any evidence of voter fraud.
There wasn’t any to receive. Meanwhile, the chair of the House Republican
conference, who had been Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is now the vice
chair of the J6 panel, issued a lengthy memo explaining why objection posed “legal
and constitutional problems.” Even so, “they went forward anyway.”

Indeed, these 10 House Republicans not only voted to reject Biden and hence the
democratic will of the American people. They voted to reject the president-elect after
the former president had ordered his paramilitaries and the armed mob to sack and
loot the US Capitol.
READ MORE: 'It's unconscionable': Doctor convicted of trespassing on January 6th
complains about having to go to jail

Again with feeling: these Republicans met with Trump to pressure Pence. When they
failed, they voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In all, 147 Republicans
in the Congress followed suit.

There could have been more. After all, the goal of the attack was to put the fear of
God into Republicans who preferred abiding by the rule of law. Ohio Congressman
Jim Jordan also suggested in a text to Mark Meadows on January 6 that there could
have been more. But Trump’s “various congressional supporters seemed increasingly
less excited now that their revolt would be covered only by C-SPAN.”

Sabotage?

Did Jordan know about the coming attack? The J6 committee doesn’t know. He
refuses to cooperate. We do know, however, that Kevin McCarty knew about it. On
January 6, the House minority leader called Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to Mark
Meadows, when he heard that Trump said he’d accompany the raging throng to the
battle site.

READ MORE: Raskin: What Trump did 'makes the Watergate break-in look like the
work of Cub Scouts'

“You told me this whole week you weren’t coming up here,” Hutchinson recalled
McCarthy saying. “Why did you lie to me?”

Did McCarthy know about Jordan being at the December 19 meeting. Again, the J6
committee doesn’t know. He refuses to cooperate. What we do know is that McCarthy
tapped Jordan to serve on the J6 committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi nixed that,
fortunately.

Why fortunately? Because if she had allowed Jordan onto the J6 committee, she
would have unwittingly delegitimized it. A potential witness to a crime can’t be
allowed to join the investigation of it.

Did McCarthy set out to sabotage the committee? Again, we don’t know. But that
would fit the profile of Republicans who from all appearances conspired with a
president to defraud the people.
 READ MORE: A coup more effective than Donald Trump’s

John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative; a contributing writer for the Washington
Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet. Follow him
@johnastoehr.

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