The House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection and Donald Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election is preparing to hold public hearings in June to provide a detailed account of the Republican Party plot to destroy America’s democratic system. According to U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, “The hearings will tell a story that will blow the roof off the House — a story of the most heinous and dastardly offense ever organized by a president and his entourage in the history of the United States.” Raskin maintained that Trump “used a violent insurrection made up of domestic violent extremist groups, white nationalists, racist and fascist groups, in order to support the coup.”
Apart from growing concern that the former president and his inner circle won’t be held accountable by the U.S. Justice Department for their treasonous actions, Trump loyalists across the country are now being appointed and running for local and state office with the explicit goal of nullifying the outcome of future legitimate elections not favorable to the GOP. At least 57 individuals who played a role in the January 6 insurrection — including some who were arrested on charges related to the Capitol attack — are running for office in 2022.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Heather Digby Parton, a contributing writer with Salon.com, who examines the methods by which the Republican party is working to destroy or subvert local and statewide electoral institutions in order to steal the next presidential election.
HEATHER DIGBY PARTON: They’re following their own playbook based on some very dubious readings of the Constitution, which most constitutional scholars reject out of hand. But they’re sort of using these things in various ways to sort of set up a situation where Donald Trump or theoretically any other Republican presidential candidate could basically overturn elections. I mean, this would be in the Electoral College.
And we saw this blueprint of that kind vaguely put together on the run after the 2020 election. And now you’re starting to see a more systematic approach to it. And much of it led by some of the same people that were involved in that, including most importantly, John Eastman, who is the former constitutional lawyer for the Claremont Institute. I don’t think he’s with them anymore.
He’s been under scrutiny from the Jan. 6 committee as well as possibly the Department of Justice — we’re not sure — for his activities during that post-election period. And he is now out in places. He’s not just lecturing, he’s going and actually kind of giving people the playbook for how to set up a situation where you could enact what they call the “independent state legislature doctrine” — the idea being that state legislatures have the ultimate say over choosing electors in presidential contests.
And the idea would be that if the state legislature, presumably a majority Republican, could say that they believe that the election was tainted, that it was rigged, that the Democrats stole it, whatever, the Big Lie, and then simply, you know, they name their own electors to go to the Electoral College.
That’s happening on the state level. And what you’re finding is that they’re now at a point where they’re starting to elect or nominate the Republicans who believe in this for posts like the secretary of state or attorney general that just happened in Michigan just over the weekend (in the Republican primary). They (nominated) two true believers and there was quite a battle in Michigan over this.
This is all happening within the Republican establishment in the state. It was quite a battle. There were a lot of people there who were going, “No, we can’t do this. These people are not right. And, you know, we want to have legitimate elections.”
And they lost in Michigan and they ended up nominating these two to run for the secretary of state and the attorney general’s office, both of which, of course, have tremendous power and essentially run the state elections there.
This is happening elsewhere. We saw it. We’ve seen what happened in places like Georgia. What’s going on down in Arizona. It’s so tempting because there’s so much crazy stuff, you know, with the way these people talk and Donald Trump and his nutty relentless insistence on the Big Lie. And everybody’s kind of rolling their eyes.
This is very serious. They’re really doing this. I’m sure that you’ve talked about this guy many times over the years, Michael Luttig, who is a very, very influential, highly respected super, super conservative, constitutional scholar has been — his hair is on fire over this.
He’s saying they’re setting this up. This is what it is. He told The New York Times that you know, this is not something that we can afford to ignore, that what they’re doing is setting the rules in place in various places for any election that is close enough to steal it.
I don’t think they have to be that close. I don’t think it has to be close. I mean, I’m not talking about just the popular vote, I think even on the Electoral College vote. I think it would be very easy at this point because people have been so propagandized by Donald Trump and by the right-wing media, which backs him every step of the way on the Big Lie that the elections are inherently tainted unless the Republican wins.
I mean, I think that’s basically what they’re prompting their people to believe. And I think we’re going to see this play out. I mean, it’s hard to say what’ll happen in 2022; that’s not an Electoral College situation.
But we are going to see sort of some dry runs, I think, in these states where, if there are any elections that are contested that are close, how this kind of mechanics of this are going to work.
And then it’s all in place for 2024.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Heather Digby Parton (17:50) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
Visit Heather Digby Parton’s Salon.com article page at salon.com/writer/
