It was problematic enough when the Republican National Committee decided to censure two of their own — Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — because they’re trying to learn the truth about the Jan. 6 attack. But how the RNC did so is proving to be an even bigger mess.
The specific wording of the RNC’s censure resolution accused the pair of lawmakers of engaging in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” It’s unclear exactly who wrote the wording — it reportedly did not appear in the original draft — but the backlash to the rhetoric was inevitable.
Indeed, it wasn’t long before much of the political world simply added one and one together: The House select committee is investigating the Jan. 6 attack; the RNC believes the committee is persecuting those who “engaged in legitimate political discourse”; so the Republican National Committee must see the deadly riot as an example of legitimate political discourse.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel has spent the last several days trying to argue otherwise. Late yesterday, her new op-ed was published online at Townhall.com, and blamed the “corporate news media” for “distorting” what she and her party were trying to say. It read in part:
The January 6 Committee predictably has now vastly exceeded its original purpose and morphed into something else entirely, investigating Republicans who had nothing to do with January 6 for the apparent offense of being Republican. Under the Committee’s approach, almost anything related to the 2020 election is within the scope of its jurisdiction, to include harassing citizens who were not even in Washington, DC that day.
As an example of an “ordinary citizen” being “persecuted,” McDaniel pointed to an unnamed Republican who was subpoenaed by the bipartisan congressional committee because she was a fake elector who signed fraudulent election documents.
The RNC chair stressed the fact that this woman — by all appearances, McDaniel is referring to Michigan’s Kathy Berden — was “nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th and had nothing to do with the violence that occurred.”
Let’s take a minute unpack all of this.
First, the idea that the “corporate news media” is somehow responsible for creating confusion is difficult to take seriously. Plenty of prominent Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, seemed quite eager this week to express their disagreement with the RNC’s “legitimate political discourse” phrasing.
Sen. John Cornyn added that when the RNC referred to Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse” was “not an accurate description.” Is McDaniel prepared to accuse the Texas Republican of “distorting” the party’s true message? Second, there’s plain text to consider. The RNC would have the public believe that it wasn’t talking about rioters when it defended those targeted by the Jan. 6 committee. That’s possibly true — I acknowledged as much last week — but that’s obviously not what the party’s written resolution said. And third, McDaniel’s pitch, even taken at face value, isn’t quite as persuasive as she wants it to be. A group of Republicans, acting at the behest of Donald Trump’s operation, participated in a potentially illegal scheme to overturn the election through forged materials. Are we supposed to be outraged that congressional investigators want information from those who volunteered to serve as fake electors?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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