This dreadful looking into things! writes Alexandra Petri:
Oh, detective. Must we look into the events of the past? Must we really? Must we dwell on the unpleasantness of a few months ago rather than moving forward? I for my own part would much prefer to move forward. Indeed, it strikes me as unavoidably morbid to ponder too closely what nearly befell my poor husband, Henry. I say “poor” only in the sense of unfortunate, of course — Henry is quite well off, and if I were ever to be his widow, I would also be quite well off. But fortunately Henry is still alive, and I am not his wealthy widow, and that is not a scenario we need to worry about or look into at all!
How that arsenic got into his martini, well, one just cannot say, can one? “Answering questions under oath? Under oath, detective? No, I think not.”
Despite the prospective widow’s objections, and over House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s, 35 House Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday in passing legislation to establish an independent commission of inquiry into the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. One suspects the Republicans opposed to such a commission might have reservations about investigating who put the arsenic in poor dear wealthy Henry’s martini that day.
Republicans are by nature ever so selective about when looking backwards is justified — cough, Benghazi. Looking backwards at the results of the 2020 election seems totally justified. Because questions.
Still, local Republican officials have had enough of the “fraudit” going on in Maricopa County, Arizona. Former President Trump posted a statement last week claiming, in part, that “the entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal and the Arizona State Senate, who is leading the Forensic Audit, is up in arms.”
For Republican officials in Maricopa County, Stop the Steal! had become Stop the Clown Show:
The GOP-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors cast the audit as a sham that’s spun out of the control of the state Senate leader who’s ostensibly overseeing it. Board Chairman Jack Sellers said Senate President Karen Fann is making an “attempt at legitimatizing a grift disguised as an audit.”
[…]
Last week, Fann sent a letter to Sellers questioning records that document the chain of custody of the ballots and accusing county officials of deleting data. The county on Monday sent a 12-page response vehemently denying wrongdoing, explaining its processes and accusing Cyber Ninjas of incompetence.
“They can’t find the files because they don’t know what they’re doing,” Sellers said during a public meeting held to refute Fann’s allegations. “We wouldn’t be asked to do this on-the-job training if qualified auditors had been hired to do this work.”
Trump’s comments are “unhinged,” tweeted the county’s top election official, Stephen Richer. “I’m literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now.”
“We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer,” said Richer. “As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5.”
But even as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed there would be no looking back on the Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump fans are elsewhere are hot and bothered about looking into things past:
At a public meeting last week in Cheboygan County, Mich., a lawyer from Detroit told county commissioners that the voting machines they used in 2020 could “flip” votes and throw an election. She offered to send in a “forensic team,” at no charge to the county, to inspect ballots and scanners.
In Windham, N.H., supporters of former president Donald Trump showed up to a town meeting this month chanting “Stop the Steal!” and demanding that officials choose their preferred auditor to scrutinize a 400-vote discrepancy in a state representative race.
And at a board of supervisors meeting May 4 in San Luis Obispo County, on California’s Central Coast, scores of residents questioned whether election machines had properly counted their votes, with many demanding a “forensic audit.”
So much backward-looking instead of moving forward when the right’s people are doing the looking. Just not when the looking into things could implicate the very congressional Republicans voting to authorize it. That could send the wrong message heading into an off-year election.
“Peace is what Henry and I need, now, more than anything,” says Petri’s widow-in-waiting. “Peace and quiet. I absolutely oppose any more of this dreadful looking into things! I won’t have it, and Henry agrees with me, I am sure. It would divide us, and put strife into our marriage. That is the last thing we need, finger-pointing and blame and strife.”