The Republican Party on Friday officially declared the January 6th, 2021, attack on the Capitol and events that led to it “legitimate political discourse”, formally rebuking two lawmakers in the party who have been most outspoken in condemning the deadly riot and the role of former President Donald Trump in spreading the election lies that fuelled it.
The Republican National Committee’s overwhelming voice vote to censure Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City culminated more than a year of vacillation, which started with party leaders condemning the Capitol attack and Mr Trump’s conduct, then shifted to downplaying and denying it.
On Friday, the party went further in a resolution slamming Ms Cheney and Mr Kinzinger for taking part in the House investigation of the assault, saying they were participating in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.
It was an extraordinary statement about the deadliest attack on the Capitol in 200 years, in which a mob of Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the complex, brutalising police officers and sending lawmakers into hiding. Nine people died in connection with the attack, and more than 150 officers were injured. The party passed the resolution without discussion and almost without dissent.
The censure is the latest and most forceful effort by the Republican Party to minimise what happened and the broader attempt by Mr Trump and his allies to invalidate the results of the 2020 election. In approving it and opting to punish two of its own, Republicans seemed to embrace a position that many of them have only hinted at: that the assault and the actions that preceded it were acceptable.
It came days after Mr Trump suggested that, if re-elected in 2024, he would consider pardons for those convicted in the January 6th attack and for the first time described his goal as aiming to “overturn” the election results.
For Republicans in Washington, the party’s actions threatened new division as their leaders try to focus attention on what they call the failings of the Biden administration. Senator Mitt Romney wrote on Twitter, “Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honour attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost.”
He did not mention that the party chair who presided over the meeting and orchestrated the censure resolution, Ronna McDaniel, is his niece.
The party’s far-right flank has been agitating to boot Ms Cheney and Mr Kinzinger out of the House Republican Conference for months, a push that Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has tried to brush aside. And their formal censure is sure to stir up those efforts again.
“We need to move on from that whole discussion and, frankly, move forward and get the House back in 2022,” said Representative Mike Garcia if California, who is facing a difficult re-election campaign in a newly configured district.
Most House Republicans tried to ignore the actions of the party on Friday, refusing to answer questions or saying they had not read the censure resolution. Dan Crenshaw of Texas called it “dumb stuff” while Mark Green of Tennessee lamented the distraction from “this abysmal administration’s record”.
Democrats, however, were incensed, especially at the censure resolution’s description of the Capitol attack as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” and the ongoing legal investigations of Mr Trump in New York and Georgia “as Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power”.
“The Republican Party is so off the deep end now that they are describing an attempted coup and a deadly insurrection as political expression,” said Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, a member of the special House committee investigating the Capitol attack.
“It is a scandal that historians will be aghast at, to think that a major political party would be denouncing Liz Cheney for standing up for the constitution and not saying anything about Donald Trump’s involvement in the insurrection.”
Adam Schiff, who is also on the committee, said, “Their party has degenerated into a cult to the former president, unwilling to acknowledge the truth, and I think they condemn themselves with their resolution.”
In his own defence, Mr Kinzinger said, “I have no regrets about my decision to uphold my oath of office and defend the constitution. I will continue to focus my efforts on standing for truth and working to fight the political matrix that’s led us to where we find ourselves today.”
Ms Cheney, who faces an uphill battle in her reelection bid against a Republican Party aligned with Mr Trump, said party leaders “have made themselves willing hostages” to Mr Trump.
"I do not recognise those in my party who have abandoned the constitution to embrace Donald Trump," she said. "History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what." – This article originally appeared in The New York Times