Dear Tim,
Hi there! I thought I’d post this open letter to you because I know from experience that it does no good to write to you – you invariably respond with a form letter that ignores the substance of the original letter. (Don’t get me started about your telephone town halls – they’re a joke! ) To get to the point, Tim – your January 6 challenge to certifying Biden’s win was a craven act of sycophancy.
As Trump-enablers go, you’re a second-stringer, maybe even third string. You lack the notoriety of fellow Trump lackeys like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes in the House and Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham in Senate, but in challenging the vote certification, your obsequiousness was first rate!
Nice fish, Tim!
The form letter I received on January 21 makes a vague reference to “irregularities and the overstepping of state laws” in the 2020 Presidential election, but you seem curiously reluctant to be specific. You must know that of 62 lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 Presidential election, 61 were dismissed. The only lawsuit that the Trump team won failed to change the result of the Pennsylvania election – Biden still won the state. Trump’s own Justice Department stated that no serious fraud had occurred. Coming from William Barr, the quintessential Trump enabler, that says a lot. As I write, Chris Christie (hardly a liberal) said the same on TV this morning.
After the debacle, you attempted to cover your own arse. On your Web page you wrote: “I strongly condemn this reprehensible behavior and call for all violence to cease immediately. Everyone who illegally breached U.S. Capitol grounds should be held fully accountable for their lawlessness.” What did you think was going to happen, Tim? Well before the election, Trump was selling the humbug that he could lose only if the voting process were rigged. Egged on by Trump’s incessant repetition of this lie (not to mention his incitement to insurrection on Jan. 6), the more violent members of Trump’s base stormed the Capitol. You aided and abetted the lie by stating beforehand that you’d object to the vote certification and by doing so even after the violence had occurred.
I would imagine that you want your constituents to forget your collusion in this tawdry affair. No doubt you want your vote against the Violence Against Women Act and your endorsement of birtherism to be forgotten as well. (In 2010, you called for measures “up to and including impeachment” if Obama did not reveal his birth certificate, which he had done in June 2008.) Though you may want to bury these things, my goal is the opposite – I would like to keep your actions in the minds of your district’s voters should you decide to run again in 2022.
Lastly Tim (and this question extends to the Republican party at large), why have you been so willing to fawn on Trump? You got a taxpayer-funded ride on Air Force One for which Trump may have expected your fealty in return, but if so, it doesn’t seem worth it. Trump may run again in four years, but that’s not guaranteed – with all the lawsuits he’ll be facing, it’s not impossible (though admittedly unlikely) that he’ll be in the slammer come 2024. And sure, Trump can do no wrong with his diehard base, but some former enablers are not so enamored of him now – I note that Moscow Mitch McConnell has already cut him loose. He knows that Trump can no longer help him confirm judges (including the 10 who received a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.) He also knows that some corporations are pulling contributions to lawmakers who objected to the certification. MMM’s ability to follow the money is inversely proportional to his ethics – if he’s ditching Trump, so should you!1
Well, I’ve said most everything I wanted to say, Tim. I gotta admit though, I’ve been wrong before – I didn’t think a con man like Trump could clinch the Presidency to begin with. I also didn’t foresee that some lawmakers would shed their integrity to be Trump’s willing stooges. I was wrong on both counts.
Your reluctant constituent,
Harry Calnan
- Update: On January 6, 2021, M3 stated, “The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.” Today (February 13, 2021), Moscow Mitch voted to acquit Trump. It seemed for a while there that Mitch was developing a late-blooming moral compass. No such luck.
de jungle 