Donald Trump says he might pardon people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 trying to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College victory of Joe Biden.
His pardons in the last few hours before vacating the White House included many cronies, notably including accused crook Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's chief strategist. Earlier beneficiaries of Trump pardons included two convicted criminals -- Roger Stone and Paul Manafort -- who refused to testify against the 45th president.
More recently Trump acknowledged that the machinations focused on January 6 were designed to overturn the election that he lost. Trump issued a statement asserting that on January 6 "Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!" (The full "Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America" has been removed by the former president, but Adam Kinzinger captured the original press release.)
Meanwhile, an Arizona state representative has introduced a 35-page bill rewriting the state election laws. Republican John Fillmore, who discounts evidence that there was no election fraud in 2020, insisted, “We need to get back to 1958-style voting.” (That would be seven years before passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Bill.) More significant than imposing restrictions on voting, Fillmore's proposed legislation would direct the legislature to call itself into special session after each election to "accept or reject the election results."
This accords with Trump's view that, "Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate."
Another Arizona Republican in the state legislature, Mark Finchem, who was at the Capitol on January 6, has appeared at QAnon conferences, and insists that the 2020 election was "irredeemably compromised," is running for Secretary of State of the Grand Canyon State -- so he can oversee future elections. He is among at least 20 secretary of state candidates across the country who question the legitimacy of Joe Biden's election. (NPR has a list.)
Today, the national Republican Party -- committed, first and foremost, to defending their leader, who lost the 2020 election -- passed a resolution censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their participation in the committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. The resolution disregards the lawless violence, the deaths that resulted, the injuries to police officers, the destruction of property, the chants of "Hang Mike Pence" (as the Vice President and his family were escorted from danger by the Secret Service), and the memory of House and Senate members fleeing in fear, insisting that the committee's investigation is a “Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
The Grand Old Party is committed to restricting American voters' right to cast ballots, changing election laws to make it simpler for state legislatures to overturn election results, and doing its utmost to whitewash political violence in defiance of the Constitution and the rule of law.