For the first time in months there were small signs of a functioning government Wednesday as congressional leaders negotiated a Covid-19 relief package and millions of vaccine doses were shipped out under the watchful eye of officials with Operation Warp Speed while carrying out contingency planning for delays due to the winter storm.
It was a glimmer of hope for progress after four years in which President Donald Trump has sowed dysfunction at every turn, a sign that perhaps America can eventually move beyond his politics of destruction. Despite the crises gripping the country, Trump was largely out of view at his White House lair, having abdicated his responsibility to try to stop the terrifying spread of the virus in these final days of his presidency.
Instead, he was scrolling through a list of potential pardons; ignoring a massive hack of the US government tied to Russia; continuing to push for the appointment of special counsels to investigate his fictional claims of voter fraud and the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of President-elect Joe Biden. In between floating false claims of voter fraud and lashing out at any Republican who dared to acknowledge Biden’s Electoral College victory on Twitter, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump managed to squeeze in a Cabinet meeting.
hough more evidence is emerging of the damage he has wrought with his false election claims — namely the violence in Texas tied to a group that was trying to ferret out non-existent ballot fraud — Trump’s close ally, Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, carried on the President’s election charade during a controversial hearing on Capitol Hill, a day after McConnell recognized Biden as the President-elect and privately told his GOP members it was time to move on.
Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, intended the hearing to focus on “voting irregularities” — though there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the November election — but he and Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the panel, also tangled over the committee’s prior probe into Ukraine, accusing one another of spreading disinformation. Defending his decision to hold a hearing, Johnson made the upside down argument that it was about “getting information that we have to look at to restore confidence in our election integrity.”
It fell to Chris Krebs, the top election security official who Trump fired after he repeatedly disputed the President’s election fraud claims on Twitter, to try to convince senators of the dangers perpetuating Trump’s election myths. “We’re past the point where we need to be having conversations about the outcome of this election,” Krebs told lawmakers Wednesday, while offering a dark view of Trump’s impact on future contests.
“I think that continued assault on democracy and the outcome of this election — that only serves to undermine confidence in the process — is ultimately … corrosive to the institutions that support elections. And going forward, it will be that much harder,” Krebs said.
“This is not the America I recognize, and it’s got to stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up,” the former top Homeland Security official for cybersecurity added. “I would appreciate more support from my own party, the Republican Party, to call this stuff out and end it. We’ve got to move on.”
