It was almost as if they’d coordinated it.
Just as the best and the brightest among their base stormed the Capitol on January 6th, GOP leadership stormed the Twitterverse Thursday morning with a flurry of denials, distractions, and deflections ahead of the Select Committee’s Jan. 6th Hearings Thursday night.
In what promises to be the top news of the evening on every network except Fox, (which, as usual, plans to shield its viewers from any and all coverage of former President Trump that fails to conform to its chosen fiction), the House Committee investigating January 6th is expected to share “previously unreleased video of former President Donald J. Trump’s top aides and family members testifying before its staff, as well as footage revealing the role of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, in the assault.”
That this coverage will shine an unflattering light on certain, high-profile members of the GOP goes without saying.
Deflect
Thus, their rush to put literally anything else in the minds of their followers today.
For House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, that meant launching an advance attack on Committee’s legitimacy:
And his indignation might be understandable if he himself wasn’t a target of the panel’s inquiry. Or, hilariously, if he himself hadn’t already taken credit for hosting the most political and least legitimate committee in American history:
In a 2015 interview with Sean Hannity, McCarthy is on record as saying, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
Distract
Blaming Biden for the price of gas was a favorite of many, shedding light on a possible serious memory problem among prominent GOP members, since, as the Wall Street Journal has made clear: “Why Are Gasoline Prices So High? Ukraine-Russia War Sparks Increases Across U.S.”
But there was also a lot of fake-outrage that Dems aren’t climbing over the bodies of mass-shooting victims to “protect Justices” of the Supreme Court (who already have around-the-clock protection provided by the US Marshall’s Service).
And let’s not forget the classic throw everything at the wall and see what sticks method:
And when all else fails, threaten to investigate the investigators.