By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com
Congressional Republicans continue to cling to The Big Lie … and it’s infuriating as hell.
One of them, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, told ABC News that Congress has a responsibility to track down every known instance of voter fraud it can find relating to the 2020 presidential election. When he was told that there is no evidence of widespread fraud, Paul insisted on following that lie down the ol’ rabbit hole.
“There are two sides to every story,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Except there isn’t another “side” to the lie fomented by Donald Trump, his acolytes in Congress and out here in Voter Land.
Then came Paul’s effort to defend his integrity by claiming that Stephanopoulos was calling him a liar. He wasn’t. Stephanopoulos said only that Paul and other GOP Trump cultists in the Senate have swallowed The Big Lie.
Let’s revisit what we know, OK?
Courts have ruled that there is no evidence of widespread fraud. President Biden won the election freely, fairly and without fraud. Every single state in the Union certified the results. The former Attorney General William Barr said there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would determine the outcome of the election.
I get that no election is utterly and completely fraud-free. Every election since the founding of our republic has produced isolated incidents – a voter or two here and/or there – of people casting ballots illegally. Is that satisfactory? Of course not! It did not approach the level of “widespread fraud” that Trump alleged for the entire post-election period leading up to President Biden’s inauguration.
The Big Lie resulted in the terrorist attack on Capitol Hill and the second presidential impeachment of Donald Trump. It put members of Congress – including Sen. Paul – in dire danger of physical harm … or worse!
So, for the Trumpsters who remain in public office to continue to base their search for voter fraud on a lie – which they surely must know to be a lie – is the height (or depth) of hypocrisy.