Kevin McCarthy, it’s time to dump Trump and restore the Republican party’s values | Opinion
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wasted no time defending Donald Trump after he was indicted late Monday for his alleged role in leading an effort to overturn the will of Georgia’s voters in the 2020 election.
“Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election,” McCarthy wrote on social media. “Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham.”
That tweet is wrong on many levels. For one thing, Trump is not the president. The man who beat him fairly, Democrat Joe Biden, is leading the nation.
Biden had nothing to do with bringing the Georgia case. That was the decision of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
As for “weaponizing,” McCarthy, like his fellow Americans, has yet to hear all the evidence in the two federal and two state cases against Trump.
There is, however, a bigger point to be made. The Georgia indictment, brought by a grand jury of citizens, is perilous for Trump. Today he is the front runner for the GOP nomination for president in the 2024 election. If Trump were to win re-election next year, he might try to make the federal indictments disappear. But a state case is not one any president can order away. The Georgia case has the potential to hold Trump criminally liable.
This chapter offers McCarthy, the Republican from Bakersfield whose district stretches north to Clovis, a chance to do something he should have done immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol: Dump Trump.
The longer McCarthy defends Trump, the more damage he inflicts on the nation and its badly divided politics. Is it right to defend someone charged with leading a criminal conspiracy to nullify a free and fair election in Georgia?
Now is the time to say, no more. Let the justice system work, and stop weaponizing politics to interfere with that process.
The GOP has lost its historical role as a voice of conservative values and has defaulted to one of authoritarianism in favor of one man. The sooner McCarthy stops defending Trump, the better for his party, and the country.
McCarthy, consider evidence
While no one has seen all the evidence that prosecutors plan to bring in the four cases, there have been glimpses that offer some idea of Trump’s culpability:
▪ The phone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes to put him ahead of Biden in the state’s ballot count.
▪ Photos of the horde of presidential records, some marked top secret and confidential, haphazardly stacked in rooms and spilled onto a floor at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, discovered there after he left the White House.
▪ A tape recording of him and some researchers, who did not have security clearances, in which he shows them a confidential battle plan for attacking a foreign nation.
▪ The encouragement by Trump to supporters on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell,” then his long delay to tell rioters to stop their attacks at the Capitol.
In the immediate wake of Jan. 6, McCarthy was clear-eyed about Trump. “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol by mob rioters,” McCarthy said on the floor of the House. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump: Accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-elect Biden is successfully able to begin his term.”
Weeks later, having had time to reconsider the political calculus, McCarthy shrunk back and would not condemn Trump, a stance he continues today.
No defense needed
Defending Trump is a fool’s errand. These indictments are not weaponized accusations, but the justice system working as it should.
McCarthy stands at another key moment. Disavow Trump and let him face justice. Do that for the good of America, the GOP, and history’s judgment.
But if McCarthy fails to act, he will keep the nation in continued upheaval. History will show he responded not with courage, but cowardice. Voters would do well to remember that come the next election.
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This story was originally published August 16, 2023 at 5:30 AM.