The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
The January 6th Select Committee has held a series of public hearings in recent weeks to lay out its findings of the investigation into the attack on the Capitol and the months-long criminal conspiracy leading up to it. The hearings have proven that former President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies abandoned their oaths and attempted to overthrow the will of the people in a scheme they knew was illegal and unconstitutional.
As a lawyer and professor, I have spent my career studying American politics, the legal system and how these systems can impact equality. Never before has an American president so egregiously violated the terms of his oath of office. The committee has shown that Trump and his associates planned, promoted and paid for the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the election. The fact that Trump incited the violence that occurred on that day is now without dispute. From testimony from his own former staffers, we now know that he knew some of his rally-goers had military-grade weapons and guns and he encouraged them to go to the Capitol anyway. We know he waited to act, and we know he thought those overrunning the Capitol had the right idea.
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And the hearings aren’t even over yet.
In the coming days and weeks, we will learn more about the violent extremist groups and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party’s ongoing attempts to take control of our election systems. By trying to replace state and local election officials with election deniers, passing laws making it harder to vote and diminishing Arizona’s faith in our elections, Republicans in our state and across the country are set on seizing and holding on to power through whatever means necessary.
The illegality of former President Trump’s actions is beyond dispute, thanks to the work of the investigators on the January 6th hearings. We know that his ultimate goal was to seize power through an unconstitutional scheme, whatever it took, starting with an illegal pressure campaign and culminating with a violent attack on his own vice president.
But the Republican reaction, or lack of one, to the jarring and damning evidence presented by the committee shows that this goes far beyond a former president. With Republican state legislatures passing laws making it harder to vote, election officials being replaced, and even with the Supreme Court, Republicans are set on overturning the next election, and the one after that, if it doesn’t go their way. Watching state Rep. Mark Finchem run for secretary of state — a primary administrator of Arizona elections — makes it clear that our Republican Party has given up on trying to win fair and square.
Getting to the truth during these hearings and then demanding accountability at the courts and the ballot box is how we stop the current campaign to sabotage future elections by changing state laws, threatening state officials, and packing election administration offices so that they can have the final say over election results — even when they lose.
I hope Arizona will continue to tune into the hearings and hear more of the full truth as the hearings continue.
Lisa Queen is an attorney in Arizona. She is a professor of practice at the University of Arizona and teaches American politics at Arizona Nursing College. The opinions shared in this piece are solely the views of the author and do not reflect any official policy of any academic institution.