That lasted for about a month, in which Mitch McConnell stood at the podium of the Senate and waved away his "not guilty" vote on the second impeachment, ensuring us Trump was now a matter for law enforcement, not voters.
Subtext: "Trump will be investigated and perhaps indicted."
History will come down hard on former Attorney General Merrick Garland for unforgivably slow-walking the investigation, leaving sufficient time for the great whitewashing that started with small meetings at Mar-a-Lago with Kevin McCarthy, then GOP leader in the House, and from that seed growing to a forest of outrageous and self-righteous rallies. In just two-and-a-half years, January 6th went from MAGAs' lowest moment, a national timeout, to a rallying cry, setting the stage for Trump's reelection in 2024. (Also as an anti-vax movement, anti-science, anti-modernity, anti-NATO, pro-Russia...)
It was only about three years in that Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice finally got around to filing charges. Unbelievable. The moment had passed.
Now, with the release of files showing that Smith subpoenaed telephone records from various members of Congress, the right feels at home as the ultimate victims, crying that Smith was "tracking calls," as if the goal was blackmail and not to investigate a possible conspiracy on January 6th — remember, the crime we saw on TV?
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is just one of many crying out:
Jack Smith tracked my private communications and those of my colleagues during his witch hunt to investigate [Trump]. This is exactly the type of political weaponization of the federal government under Presidents Obama and Biden that Republicans and President Trump have been calling out for years. We will get to the bottom of this, but every American should be shocked to see what happened here."
"Witch hunt?" He means the investigation of the vicious attack on Congress, of which he's a member, now subject to a whitewash so shameful that his memory seems wiped politically clear.
Again, Hagerty is just one of many.
Left unsaid is that Smith investigated many reports that members of Congress both knew of the "alternate electors" and the plan to attack the Capitol. And yet Hagerty is here acting as though Smith "tracked his calls" to set the senator up.
Brazil went through something similar — it imprisoned its president for years. It is a more mature democracy.
In Washington, the monstrous crime necessitated a massive investigation. This wasn't some spontaneous uprising, with Congress hapless bystanders. No, Trump invited everyone to congregate and asked members of Congress to speak. The Electoral College had voted, it was over, and yet Trump continued to hold rallies, promising this one would be "wild," with a wink.
People like Hagerty and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) conveniently forget that MAGA "troops" were in position on January 5th. Steve Bannon (who refused to testify to Congress about the plot), all but laid out the scene:
“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.
“I’ll tell you this: It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.”
But this is a hoax witch hunt, according to many.
Everyone close to Trump knew the attack was coming. "Strap in" leaves no room for doubt, and surely some in Congress knew. Hawley wasn't pumping his fist about a vote. This was an attack on Congress, an attempt to steal the presidency, a crime at the absolute highest possible level. It would have been malpractice had Smith not sought the phone records of damn near everyone, Democrats included.
So powerful is Trump's ability to reverse reality, so willing are the followers to absorb an alternate history, the subpoena revelation has become a rallying point, crying about the fact that Garland's Justice Department took action against them, and yet Obama, Hillary Clinton, Smith, and other usual suspects remain free.
The MAGA crowd likes to spout out, "What if Trump and Pam Bondi 'tracked' the calls of Democratic senators?" To which the obvious retort is, "Had Democrats attacked the Capitol and a later Democratic president pardoned them all, Democrats wouldn't have a lot to complain about."
Therein lies the difference. The right is ever willing to bend reality to fit their need to prosecute the investigators, their raison d'etre. Prominent Democrats must be imprisoned for reasons traced to conspiracy theories, Pizzagate and Q-Anon. Meanwhile, the left knows that if reality were let loose, nearly everyone in the current executive branch would face a grand jury.
There is an obvious example, one of dozens.
What if Joe Biden was associated with Jeffrey Epstein but had Garland and then FBI Director Chris Wray send 1,000 FBI agents to pore through the records and flag all mentions of Biden? What if Biden then publicly stated there was nothing to see, it's a Republican hoax? What if he then promoted Ghislaine Maxwell to "Club Fed,” a prison way cushier than any sex offender ever would normally see? Oh, and we'd be supposed to ignore the birthday card with a naked woman mentioning friends with secrets, too.
The right would take up pitchforks.
The Epstein matter is a cover-up of the highest order. But January 6th need not even be covered up — it's now a point of pride. They fought the righteous fight, and anyone investigating it is the criminal. We are in upside-down world.
The Republican-controlled government will now investigate the investigators (they have experience with this), and they will assert that criminal Democrats were looking to "trap" innocent Republicans by "tracking" their calls, conveniently forgetting the attempted coup as if it were a wholesome, peaceful protest — or simply never happened, even though we all saw it live on TV.
That is where it gets especially dangerous.
Like so many dictators before him, Trump doesn't even pretend to serve the whole country. He openly leads and favors all who slavishly support him. All others have become "the enemy within." Somewhere, Stalin is nodding.
In 2020, democracy handed Trump a loss he was unable to psychologically process. Democracy itself became his enemy, one to be attacked on January 6th.
He campaigned in 2024 that he would be here to finish the job. He may voluntarily step down in 2028. He will be old. But he'll be damned if he ever subjects himself to democracy again. (You know he plans to run somehow — he's building a ballroom and it's not for JD Vance.)
And so it goes, the right will now initiate criminal investigations into those who investigated them. The key difference is that Trump and his followers committed a real crime. It was live on TV.
After the murder of Charlie Kirk, the right likes to say that only the left resorts to violence. Wrong. In 2000, the Democrat Al Gore had a legitimate case that the Supreme Court cut off counting the vote in Florida that would have made him the next president. Yet Democrats accepted events. They didn't attack the Capitol.
In 2020, Trump clearly lost — it wasn't that close. And yet, as president, Trump literally sought fake votes from a "friendly" Republican Secretary of State in Georgia ("All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, give me a break."). Then he sent the mob to sack the Capitol. The right is not "peaceful" when threatened.
So we're entering even more dangerous territory. Trump must avoid the Epstein issue. So he cries that the enemy within is stronger than any international adversary (Imagine China's smile.) Thus, Texas appears to be on the verge of invading Illinois. The stage is now set for a series of arrests, with Trump criminalizing any opposition to the regime.
Just like any regular dictator — just like Putin.
Changing voting mechanisms, altering districts, eliminating mail-in ballots, having the National Guard at polling stations — all of it tightens the noose. Hopefully, people don't start falling out of buildings. Don't laugh.
Bannon said "Strap in," but now it appears all too likely that Democrats must strap in for a fight to prevent 40 years of Republican rule, taking us straight from the first world to the second, that of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India.
We are watching it in real time. The fact the FBI released information already known (the subpoenas for calls from the members of Congress around Jan. 6th) is of no matter. They have the Epstein files from which to distract. It seems to be working all too well.
Trump supporters are demanding investigations — we're used to that, it's a given. But against arrests properly made as a result of a vicious attack on the Capitol, they won't be satisfied. As James Comey can attest, nothing but arrests will satisfy this crowd, nor this president.
Everyone remembers watching the battle for democracy live on TV on January 6th, 2021. But, really, who could've known that we were merely observing the first skirmish in a war?
Left with no choice, we must fight back — but not violently. Fight back with the weapon they most fear. The truth. Sure, they will ignore it. Many in the teetering middle won't. It is not irrelevant. Ultimately, the truth is the toughest army for them to subdue. So get it out there because, setting aside lone-wolf violent attacks, the truth is, actual criminalization of politics is wholly one-sided.
A battle for truth is a fight for democracy, and it also needs to be fought live on televisions, phones, computers, and the streets. No self-respecting democratic resistance would do otherwise.
They will be the ones playing victims, pointing at clouds, always creating a fact-free reality. But have no doubt, the consequences are all too real.
- Jason Miciak is a former Associate Editor at Occupy Democrats, author, American attorney, and can be found regularly on Politizoom. He can be reached jasonmiciak@gmail.com, Twitter @JasonMiciak, and follow on Bluesky @jasonmiciak.bsky.social
A Trump supporter in Georgia. Photograph: Zach D. Roberts for the Palast Investigative Fund (2024)