The ultra-hypocrisy of the January 6 defendants
Summoning the Constitution to their defense after seeking to destroy it with a wrecking ball
The January 6th defendants aimed to destroy the Constitution by employing force, violence, or threats to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from counting state-certified electoral votes (there were no competing electors claiming state-certification) as inarguably mandated by the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act for the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Success by the insurrectionists would have meant the death of the Constitution and replacement of the rule of law by a rule of men. The United States would have become earmarked by the lawlessness of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
As January 6th defendants, however, the mobsters—like death bed conversions—are seeking every protection the Constitution has to offer to avoid guilty verdicts or imprisonment. Isn’t that like a rapist seeking to summon his victim as a character witness?
The hypocrisy is compounded manifold by the fawning adulation the January 6th defendants display for a man supremely contemptuous of the Constitution, i.e., Donald Trump. On July 23, 2019, for instance, President Trump proclaimed in the manner of Napoleon’s self-coronation, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president. That extraconstitutional boast was followed by a call to “terminate” the Constitution over concocted claims of electoral fraud that had been rejected in 61 lawsuits, his own high-level appointees like Attorney General William Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, and even experts hired by Mr. Trump himself for $600,000!
The January 6th defendants are despicable people—including those who did not personally resort to violence. All had a common, nefarious, repugnant objective—to destroy the Constitution and rule of law for which so many have given or risked that last full measure of devotion. If justice reigns in an afterlife, all will occupy Dante’s 9th circle of hell for betraying their country. Until then, they should self-deport out of shame.