GOP Celebrates “Bring a Terrorist to Work Day” with invite to Trump

Trump is the Bin Laden of Jan 6

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff dubbed Donald Trump’s return Thursday to the Capitol for the first time since Trump’s Jan 6 attack: “Bring your felon to work day.” That is accurate. But in reality, it was also bring your terrorist to work day for the GOP with the invite of Trump. That is not being hyperbolic given that FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified before Congress several times explaining that pursuant to federal law, the Jan 6 attack was an “act of domestic terrorism.”

Thus, Trump—as the leader of Jan 6—is a terrorist. That means what the GOP did on Thursday was akin to inviting Osama Bin Laden to visit Ground Zero three years after 9/11. Bluntly, today’s GOP would do just that if they believed it would them politically.

While Trump was there, the GOP delivered a pathetic display of absolute loyalty to a man who is barred from more than 35 countries because of his felony convictions.  Trump—who is still facing federal criminal charges for his efforts per the indictment “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election”-- was celebrated and honored by the so-called “law and order” loving GOP.  House Republicans presented Trump the game ball from their victory in Wednesday night's Congressional Baseball Game and delivered a jovial rendition of “Happy Birthday” a day before Trump turned 78.

Later, Senate Republicans welcomed Trump with a standing ovation, with Kansas Senator Roger Marshall dubbing it a “magic moment” and Senator Marco Rubio characterizing the event as “getting the team back together.” GOP Senator Ted Cruz pathetically went as far as to keep clapping for Trump even after he left the meeting room, prompting MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to mockingly ask on his show Thursday night, “Did he think Donald Trump could see through the door?!”

Some have rightly focused on the hypocrisy of the Republicans who slammed Trump after Jan 6 but now were sucking up to him.  The most glaring act of political cowardice though came from GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell. This is the same McConnell who stood on the Senate floor at the conclusion of Trump’s 2021 impeachment trial and delivered a searing indictment of Trump.  While McConnell was not part of the 57 Senators including seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump—he still laid the blame for the attack on him: “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.” The Kentucky Republican added that despite aides begging Trump to call off the attack as it transpired, instead Trump “watched television happily” and “kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election.”

Yet at Trump’s first return to the Capitol since that very attack, there was McConnell joyfully shaking hands with Trump. Afterwards, McConnell told the press, “It was an entirely positive meeting.”  Hypocritical is too kind of a word for McConnell.

But there’s something far more dangerous at play here with the GOP welcoming Trump back to the Capitol than hypocrisy. It’s that the GOP Senate and House offered a “hero’s welcome” to a man who they know sought to overturn the 2020 election. They all understand that the four count federal indictment against Trump states point blank, “Despite having lost, the defendant [Trump] was determined to remain in power.” To that end, Trump employed "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to achieve his illegal goal.

These GOP leaders feted Trump knowing full well that the final report of the bipartisan House committee that investigated Jan. 6, concluded: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed.” Adding, “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

These Republicans cheered and sang songs to Trump who has turned his rallies into a celebration of the Jan. 6 attackers who waged the violent battle to keep him in power. They are obviously not troubled with Trump despicably opening his rallies with a rendition of The Star Spangled sung by the Jan. 6 attackers—known as the “J6 Prison Choir's"—with the crowd commanded by the rally announcer to stand for them, "Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.”

And these GOP elected officials are fully aware that Trump has not only vowed to pardon these MAGA criminals, but last weekend at his rally, their presumptive presidential nominee praised the attackers as his “J6 warriors.”  A “warrior” is not a person who walked calmly through the Capitol on Jan. 6, a “warrior” is “a person who fights in battles and is known for having courage and skill.”  Consequently, Trump is now honoring those who brutally beat and severely injured more than 140 police offices on Jan. 6, which Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, stated in January was “likely the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history.”

The former chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, put it perfectly Thursday by way of a statement in response to Trump’s visit: “After inciting a deadly insurrection that defiled the halls of Congress, how dare Trump show his face on these grounds? Congressional Republicans allow him to waltz in here when it’s known he has no regard for democracy.” Thompson rightly added about Trump, “He still presents the same dire threat to our democracy that he did three years ago.”

This is not just about the hypocrisy of a few GOP officials. It’s about the GOP House and Senate’s gleeful and jubilant celebration of a man who sought to end our democratic Republic. This is what putting loyalty to Trump over the US Constitution looks like. And it’s the very definition of treasonous.

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