QEVIN MCQARTHY STEPPED IN IT THEN DANCED IN IT

A week ago today, the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 insurrection asked telecommunication companies to preserve phone records from a number of Trump-supporting GOP House members who spoke at the "Stop the Steal" rally, asking them to preserve records for Trump and his family members as well.

The House Republican leader wasn’t having any of it, issuing a public statement in which he claimed, "If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States. If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law."

As is usual with the statements of most House Republicans, none of that was factual.

Norm Eisen, an ethics lawyer and fellow at the Brookings Institution pointed out,"McCarthy's threat against telecom companies who lawfully produce documents is shocking, It's like a gangster saying, 'Gee, nice telecom company you've got here. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.'"

McCarthy wasn’t the only House Republican to threaten telecommunication companies.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the Trumpers whose phone records are sought, went on Tucker Carlson's show last Tuesday to issue a more direct threat: “These telecommunications companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down. And that's a promise."

There’s an old political saying, made back in the 19th century by Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, a French politician and one of the leaders of the French Revolution of 1848 that is called to mind by McCarthy’s antics: "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader." The quote may well be apocryphal, but it is nonetheless accurate..

McCarth has spent the years since Trump came down the golden escalator acting as Trump’s factotum; a groveler and sniveler, who Trump has held in obvious contempt despite his loyalty. Look at most photos of him and he can be identified by his hunted look.

The one thing in the world McCarthy will do anything to obtain is election as Speaker of the House. He was once in competition for the job with Paul Ryan, but was rejected for being “too stupid,” in the words of his fellow Republicans at the time. McCarthy is now emerging as a demagogue in his own right, probably out of fear he’ll be the victim of a coup put on by the GOP firebreathers if he doesn’t.. This obstruction of a congressional inquiry is like a viiolation of House ethics rules, as well as federal law. The shamlessness, the norm-busting is presumably the point: McCarthy needs to show his chest hair and spitting skills to maintain leadership in a party where toxic masculinity is now the dominant political philosophy.

It’s also likely he is also hiding something, either in his own conduct during the attack on the Capitol, or in the conduct of his members. By his chosen response, McCarthy has now fully adopted the MAGA concept of governing as gangsterism.

With the notable exception of Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party’s national leadership has enthusiastically embraced the lawless pursuit and exercise of power as its reason for existence.

The American Right has traditionally had three roles that define its coalition: a governing conservatism, a movement conservatism and a populist far right wing. Until Trump, the governing slot was filled by moderate conservatives such as George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and John McCain, and pragmatists such as Bob Dole.

The 1980 Reagan Revolution pushed what remained of Republican “liberalism” out, resulting in a uniformly conservative party. However, the governing moderate conservatives sought the political support of centrists worked to get legislative cooperation with Democrats. The movement conservatives saw their role as stiffening the ideological spines of the governing conservatives, and included anti-tax advocates, pro-life activists and judicial originalists who met at such places as Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meetings or the Heritage Foundation, where they encouraged conservative purity and punished heterodoxy. The populist right wing was represented by people like Pat Buchanan, who practiced a transgressive politics, seethed about racial and ethnic changes in the country, and reserved their harshest criticism for the globalists of the Republican establishment.

That all began to come apart with the rise of Newt Gingrich in the late 80s and early 90s, in company with the advent of Fox News. With those two events, the GOP began a firm rightward shift that since Trump’s solidification of control; now, what was the Buchanan “peasants with pitchforks” right is the governing face of the party, further radicalized by its temporary access to executive power through Trump.

The “movement” conservatives have become the Christianist “nationalists,” and/or true QAnon believers, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other House Republicans who are being investigated bty the January 6 committee do not so much push right as down, into a rabbit hole of destructive insanity.

The Buchanan right-wing populist slot is now the militia movement, the Proud Boys, neo- Confederates and white supremacists. They were invited into the GOP coalition by Trump’s refusal to repudiate them. The result is Representative Madison Cawthorn feeding their appetite for apocalyptic “bloodshed.”

As a result, even “movement” conservatives of the pre-2015 era have been red-shifted out of any role unless they joined the radicals. Conscienceless scum like Ted Cruz and McCarthy saw their political choice was adapt or die; they are consummate adapters.

What happens when a leader like McCarthy fully embraces Trumpism as governing Republicanism is that he is implicitly affirming the new ideology of the American right: its lawless governing theory, its cultlike conspiracy theories and its threat of political violence.

Because of this, the elections of 2022 and 2024 may well determine the future of constitutionalism and democratic liberalism in America. Should McCarthy attain his goal of the Speakership in 2023, the elevation of such a weak, conscienceless careerist to House speaker would be the disastrous day in the history of the Republic.There is no duller and obvious hack than McCarthy. No one expects this transparently empty suit to stand for principle of any kind. His far-right rivals, such as Jim Jordan, allow him to hold power because they can so easily manipulate him. Among all tghe worst Republican congressional leaders of the past 40 years - Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Hastert - McCarthy is the weakest in both intellect and character, which is why he presides over the final stages of Republican decay, as it degenerates into an instrument of fascist insurrection.

McCarthy was against Trump's big lie before he was for it. Within hours of his denunciation of Trump and the insurrection, his moment of courage evaporated despite his having been terrified by the event and he voted against certifying the Democratic victory in two states; this after he told a reporter that he knew Biden was the legitimate victor. Within a matter of days, he ran with his tail between his legs to Mar-a-Lago, where he parroted the big lie and then backed a lawsuit to overturn the election results in two states. Then he denied supporting Trump's claims of election fraud and grudgingly admitted that President Joe Biden had won. He has continued the dance of accepting and not accepting Biden's legitimacy while obviously covering up the seditious conduct of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz and Madison Cawthorn.

McCarthy’s attempt to block any bipartisan investigation of the conspiracies that led to the January 6 attack failed, which made him even more desperate. His attempt to obstruct the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack by making and absurdly unconvincing threat against telecom companies if they comply with lawful requests from that panel only reveraled how pathetic his is. And despite having an ethics complaint filed against him, he continues to demonstrate in his fear that the suspicions about the insurrectionist gang of loony Republicans in the days before that event are true. He's scared. Of the committee, of Liz Cheney, or his fellow House members. But the more he dances, the more everybody sees right through him.

One former high level federal prosecutor has pointed out that what McCarthy did is clearly a crime of obstructing the investigation of a congressional committee. The relevant law is See 18 USC 1505 and 1515:

Section 1505 of Title 18, United States Code, as amended by the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982, forbids anyone from corruptly, or by threats of force or by any threatening communication, influencing, obstructing, or impeding any pending proceeding before a department or agency of the United States, or Congress. In 1996 Congress enacted a clarifying amendment to 18 U.S.C. § 1515, which defines the term "corruptly" as used in section 1505 to mean "acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including making a false or misleading statement, or withholding, concealing, altering, or destroying a document or other information." False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-292, §3, 110 Stat. 3459, 3460.

The Department of Justice’s manual on this subject states:

“The omnibus clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1505 parallels its counterpart in 18 U.S.C. § 1503 in language and purpose, and most of the law construing the latter is applicable to the former. Generally, a defendant may be found guilty under section 1505 if the government establishes that: (1) there was a proceeding pending before a department or agency of the United States; (2) the defendant knew of or had a reasonably founded belief that the proceeding was pending; and (3) the defendant corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which the proceeding was pending. United States v. Price, 951 F.2d 1028, 1030-31 (9th Cir. 1991); United States v. Sprecher, 783 F. Supp. 133, 163 (S.D.N.Y. 1992).

McCarthy may say his intention is not corrupt, but the word “corrupt” is interpreted to mean deliberately counseling witnesses to withhold documents without a good faith privilege, and instead to block the committee from getting the requested information.

McCarthy is dumb enough to have stepped in it without realizing he did, But his continued dance in the muck confirms the choice he has made here. The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives is willing to countenance and even support treason and sedition, in his lust for power.

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