Don’t Ever Get Used to Trump’s Contempt for the Law

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The strongest case for the work of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and for that committee to move quickly to public hearings, is that former President Donald Trump continues to make it clear that he set out to undermine democracy, that he sees nothing wrong with having done so, and that he would do it again if given a chance.

I'd prefer to ignore what Trump is saying, but that's not really an option. He's acting like a presidential candidate — he is, as the political scientist Josh Putnam puts it, running for 2024, although we won't know for some time whether he'll be running in 2024 — so he can't just be ignored.

Over the weekend, Trump told a rally audience in Texas that if he was returned to the presidency he would pardon — well, “consider” pardoning, but the message was pretty clear — those who invaded the Capitol on his behalf. There's nothing new about Trump's abuse of the presidential pardon power as a partisan and personal weapon. He was also explicit when in office about his desire to use the power of prosecution the same way, and resented being unable to persuade the Justice Department to go along. Still, we should not stop being shocked by a former president, and perhaps a future president, so dismissive of the rule of law.

Also over the weekend, Trump once again made it clear that he had wanted Vice President Mike Pence to “overturn the election” on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Pence exercised his constitutional obligation to approve the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 victory. As the Washington Post's Aaron Blake points out, Trump's statement dispenses with the (totally bogus) scheme that supposedly justified such an action by Pence under the law and the Constitution; Trump simply thinks that Pence should have declared the loser of the election to be the winner, full stop. Trump's disdain for the rule of law should retain the power to shock. It should outrage. It certainly should disqualify him from any place in political life ever again.

Remember: One year ago, seven of the 50 Republican senators voted to convict Trump after his second impeachment, and presumably would have voted to remove his eligibility for future office for doing what he's bragging about doing and promising to do again. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit, but made it clear that he considered Trump guilty as charged and, he said, only refrained from voting guilty because Trump had already left office before the Senate impeachment trial. Several other Republicans seemed to hold the same position as McConnell — most likely enough (given the unanimous votes to convict from the Democrats) to convict, and perhaps enough along with the seven “yes” votes to constitute a majority of Senate Republicans. Others claimed that the evidence of supporting an insurrection and an attempt to upend the constitutional government of the U.S. was insufficient to convict. I don't recall any Republican senator acknowledging that Trump did what he certainly did but arguing that it was fine for a president to scheme to overturn an election.

But as the author David Frum said on Twitter, Trump “never allows his supporters to pretend to be innocent.”

The Jan. 6 committee should hold its hearings to make it clear that Trump's boasts are not empty. It is important to detail this extraordinary attempt to destroy U.S. democracy — to make it clear who was involved and how, and who the heroes were. Especially the Republicans, who had to act against partisan interest.

But in important ways, the Jan. 6 inquiry isn't like the Senate Watergate committee hearings of 1972 or the Iran-contra joint committee hearings of 1987, in which investigators were still piecing together big questions even as the hearings began. I expect the Capitol riot committee to dig up plenty of important details. But this time, we know in advance that Trump is guilty of acting against the constitution. If anyone ever doubts it, Trump himself is perfectly willing to remind us.

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the two Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee, took to Twitter on Sunday to express his view of Trump's claim that Pence “could have overturned the election” and that it was unfortunate that he did not.

I'll give Kinzinger the final word:

This is an admission, and a massively un-American statement. It is time for every Republican leader to pick a side … Trump or the Constitution, there is no middle on defending our nation anymore.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.