By ALEX GIMARC
Alaska’s senior U.S. senator took to Twitter (X) midweek in full-throated support of the four newest indictments of former President Donald Trump. Blowback was immediate and harsh both on Twitter and here in MRAK.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski is in her happy place, a world where Trump is about to get his, and she couldn’t be more pleased or sanctimonious. Sadly, the damage to the body politic by the indictments and her support for it will be significant.
Lisa tweeted the following:
“In early 2021, I voted to impeach former President Trump based on clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it. Additional evidence presented since then, including by the January 6 Commission, has only reinforced that the former President played a key role in instigating the riots, resulting in physical violence and desecration of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. I encourage everyone to read the indictment, to understand the very serious allegations being made in this case.”
There has been no formal press release from her office on this round of indictments like there was in June on the classified documents indictments.
Her comments are borderline amazing. Let’s take a look at what she says and apparently believes.
She starts off proudly reminding readers of her vote to impeach Citizen Donald Trump in Feb 2021 weeks after he left office.
Note that Congress does not have the authority to impeach, try or convict anyone after they are out of office, yet Lisa wears this profoundly unconstitutional act like a badge of honor.
Don’t forget the other aspects: Trump not being allowed to defend himself or present any contrary evidence before either house of Congress in this.
She then goes on to state there is clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it.
Trump was questioning the results, something elections losers have been doing since Andrew Jackson lost the presidency in the Corrupt Bargain of 1824. Nearly 200 years later and we are doing the same thing, yet in Lisa’s world, these questions are somehow a new and awful thing.
She then mentions evidence. Sadly, there was no evidence presented either in support of or in opposition to the 2020 results. Why? Not a single court took the case. They were all thrown out, usually due to lack of standing and poor timing (too early or too late). No court case equals no evidence. It simply doesn’t exist. Lisa thinks it does.
As it turns out, the courts are not the place to decide this. Congress is the place, which is why Trump was trying to force Congress to do its job.Congress — Lisa included — refused, which is a choice. It was the wrong choice, but a choice nonetheless.
Lisa talks about additional evidence presented including that of the Jan. 6 Commission, yet she appears to be completely oblivious to the fact that nobody on the Trump team was allowed to present any alternative evidence to the commission.
Indeed, unlike the normal House Committee, it didn’t have a functional minority, with all minority nominees rejected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Committee was singularly uninterested in FBI informants embedded in the crowd, why National Guard troops weren’t called up, why the Capital Police were told to allow protesters into the capital, and any or all communications between Speaker Pelosi’s office, the police, FBI, Pentagon, and other entities responsible for security.
It turns out that Lisa isn’t much interested in that either, as her mind, like any steel trap, is already made up that it is “Bad Orange Man’s fault.”
She ends her tweet reminding us all how scary the riot was for her and her fellow swamp dwellers, and calls on us all to read the indictments.
I get it that the event was scary. It was supposed to be, intended by whomever organized it to stampede Congress into mindlessly certifying the 2020 election results.
But Lisa is singularly disinterested in finding out who was behind it, who participated in the organization, planning and execution of it, opting to believe the carefully constructed fantasy that a bunch of unarmed people taking selfies in a single building are capable of flipping the government of the most powerful nation in the known history of the planet.
Really?
Lisa needs to think long and hard about what is going on here. The Biden Justice Department is going after former President Trump with everything they’ve got, meddling in yet another national election like they did in 2016 (Russia Collusion), 2020 (Hunter laptop), and 2022 (social media censorship), none of which Lisa seems to be interested in solving, much less acknowledging.
In the courts, they are going after Trump using the very same techniques they used to target and fraudulently convict Ted Stevens in 2008, removing him from office.
You would think Lisa would be more sensitive to that, too, for all her professed sadness at Ted leaving the Senate. She isn’t, however, because her mind is made up, and this is her last best chance to get rid of Trump completely.
This mess has grown every single day of the 21 years Lisa Murkowski has been in the US Senate. She is generally uninterested in even acknowledging we have a problem other than taking the occasional opportunity to blast away at Trump. She could have done something, anything, to solve it. She still can. Yet she has chosen to focus on other things.
She has chosen. Poorly. What a waste of a career in the Senate.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
