This story originally appeared in The Washington Post August 30, 2024
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/30/trump-harris-election-results-insurrection/?utm_source=pocket_saves

Opinion The question Trump should be asked every single day

The Jan. 6 insurrection is far from old news.

By Colbert I. King

August 30, 2024 at 3:57 p.m. EDT

Are we in La La Land?

If I didn’t know better, I might conclude that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, in which rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election, was merely the act of exuberant “patriots” voicing their displeasure with Joe Biden’s victory — and that Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. What else to think, based on the media’s treatment of the twice-impeached former president and felon and his campaign to return to the White House?

Trump is being covered by the press as if Jan. 6 were old news.

Here we are, back to horse-race journalism and breathless pursuit of polls and other campaign nuggets designed to keep audiences glued to our websites, networks and newspapers — with little attention paid to the character, records of service and moral fitness of candidates who seek the highest offices in the land. To wit: Republicans Trump and JD Vance, and Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Fortunately, and for the sake of our democracy and Constitution, special counsel Jack Smith is not going to let Trump slide away from his attempt to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory. Yes, the ultraconservative Supreme Court majority (cobbled together by Trump himself during his time in office) gave Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card with its ruling granting presidents broad immunity for official acts — a contrived loophole that carefully safeguards several of his actions to overturn the will of the voters.

But the ruling might have left Smith with room to run, including where the allegations concern Trump’s behavior during the ransacking and riot at the Capitol. According to the updated indictment that Smith filed Tuesday, Trump did try to exploit the violence unleashed by his supporters to delay certification of the election. There is evidence of Trump tweeting through the attacks that the election was a fraud. There is evidence of Trump saying Vice President Mike Pence lacked the courage to block the transfer of power.

The new indictment, redesigned to fit under the umbrella of the court’s suspect ruling, still contains enough facts to show that Trump was determined to hold on to the reins of power. Namely, evidence revealing that Trump spread lies about fraud in the election, that he sowed distrust of the results and that he targeted a bedrock U.S. government function: collecting, counting and certifying the votes of the electoral college.

And here, in 2024, we have Trump campaigning in full misogyny, with lewd references to Harris, without being pressed for answers about behavior that unleashed the worst assault on the seat of the federal government since the War of 1812.

Imagine a president singling out his own vice president for the scorn of a bloodthirsty mob and sitting back as Secret Service agents scrambled to protect him and his family. Imagine a president receiving reports of members of Congress fleeing the Capitol for their lives and not immediately sending reinforcements to the Hill. Imagine a president leaving it to a D.C. mayor and her police force to rescue U.S. Capitol Police.

Why would a president ignore findings by his own Justice Department that there was no evidence of significant election fraud, then turn to an ad hoc crew of co-conspirators to try to undo what American voters had done?

Those questions should hound Trump on the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, Trump’s New Jersey golf club is hosting a fundraiser for families of the defendants charged in the attack on the Capitol. Felons — dubbed “patriots” by Trump — whose sentences he has promised to commute if he’s returned to the White House.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,488 people have been charged with crimes related to the breach of the Capitol, including nearly 550 individuals charged with the felony of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Now is the time — not on Election Day, but before voters head to the polls on Nov. 5 — to find out whether Trump will accept the 2024 presidential election results.

We know all too well what happened before.

It was a nightmare that I forecast in a 2021 New Year’s Day column.

Trump, I observed at the time, was desperately scheming to find new ways to alter the 2020 outcome. He had ignored the more than 90 state and federal judges who rejected challenges to the election because there was no evidence to support their claims of fraud. He had scraped together a cult of Republican lawmakers to lodge objections to interrupt congressional certification of the electoral college.

“Imagine Congress assembling to count electoral college votes in the midst of Trump-encouraged chaos,” I wrote. “Nothing would please Trump die-hards more than the eruption of an all-out conflagration around Capitol Hill.” And I warned, “Trump isn’t calling his followers to Washington for sport. Or to make lawmakers nervous. Or to dominate the news cycle. Trump wants to overturn the 2020 election and take the presidential oath on Jan. 20.” Thank goodness Capitol and D.C. police thwarted the scheme.

The Jan. 6 insurrection caused about $2.7 billion in costs and resulted in assaults on at least 174 police officers and the deaths of seven people.

America does not deserve a repeat of that Trump performance.

The nation needs to know in advance whether, this time around, Donald Trump is committed to accepting the 2024 results. He should be asked that whenever he shows his face in public.

Every. Single. Time.

This isn’t La La Land. We, the media and the public, need answers.

Opinion by Cobert King
Colbert I. “Colby” King writes a column — sometimes about D.C., sometimes about politics — that runs in print on Saturdays. In 2003, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. King joined the Post’s editorial board in 1990 and served as deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007.