Understanding Republican Lies: Majorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy

Marjorie Taylor Greene Takes the Stand

On Friday, an evidentiary hearing was held before an administrative law judge in Georgia:

The case against Marjorie Taylor Green is based on section 3 of the 14th Amendment, added after the Civil War, which states that a person who “engaged in insurrection” or has “given aid and comfort to the enemies” in an insurrection is ineligible to serve in Congress:

The case was also brought under the Georgia Challenge Statute, which says any citizen can challenge the right of a candidate to be on the ballot. (It’s clear from the procedures that the Challenge Statute was intended for simple matters; for example, if a candidate needs to show a birth certificate or proof of Georgia residency.)

Marjorie Taylor Greene, recall, is the QAnon devotee conspiracy theorist who, among other things, suggested space lasers were responsible for California wildfires.

She took the stand on Friday and solemnly swore to tell the truth. (I know. That also sounds like a punchline.)

Once the cross-examination began, it was clear that Greene had been well-coached. She understood that:

• a person who “can’t recall” skates around perjury (it’s pretty much impossible to convict someone of perjury if they say they don’t remember),
• similarly, phrasing something as “I believe” or “I don’t believe so,” makes a charge of perjury almost impossible, and
• being utterly incompetent or even mentally deficient doesn’t exclude her from running for Congress under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(The first two points above do not preclude a judge from concluding under a preponderance of the evidence that she’s lying and ruling against her.)

Her lawyer actually opened by saying, “The voters should decide elections” and not people in positions of authority.

He meant, of course, that Greene should be on the ballot so the voters can decide—but he seemed blithely unaware of the irony of his statement.

The defense, as I expected, argued that:

• The GA statute wasn’t intended to be used to decide matters under the 14th Amendment,
• The procedure was fundamentally unfair (she didn’t have any of the protections a defendant has in criminal court),
• Anything she said was protected 1st Amendment speech, and
• There wasn’t enough evidence to show that Greene was directly connected to the attack on the Capitol.

Any time Green didn’t want to answer a question, she responded with “I don’t recall.” It got ridiculous.

Asked if she advocated for Trump to use martial law, she said: “I don’t recall.”

Asked if she ever discussed Martial Law with Trump, she said, “I don’t recall.” It is not believable that she wouldn’t recall something like that.

She said she is not responsible for anything posted on her Facebook page or Twitter account because her staff often posted Tweets and Facebook entries, and she often doesn’t know what they’re posting.

She said she had no idea that her Twitter account “liked” a comment about putting a bullet through Nancy Pelosi’s head.

Any time a recording or video was played with her voice, she insisted that the video has been “edited and spliced.” She said there was material before and after the clip that would change the context.

At one point, the questioner played a tape in which she said we can’t allow a peaceful transfer of power. She said the statement was taken out of context.

Asked if she provided funding or information to anyone in connection with the January 6 demonstrations, she said, “I don’t think so. I have no idea.”

She said she doesn’t know whether she used the date “1776” in connection with January 6. She was shown her tweets and clips of her speeches using “our 1776 moment” in connection with January 6. She repeated that the recordings were spliced and edited and moreover she had no idea what was posted on her social media accounts.

When shown her fighting words, she said, “I was talking about the courage to object to the electors, which is my right as a representative.”

Another moment that killed irony: She said she doesn’t like social media because there are so many “hateful” people.

The questioner asks what she meant by her statement that once you lose your freedom you can only earn it back with “the price of blood.” She says she did not intend violence by the phrase “price of blood.”

When she was asked, “If someone broke the law in a way designed to interfere with the process (under the Twelfth Amendment) would that person be an enemy of the Constitution?” she said she doesn’t know.

Meanwhile, the defense strategy was to say “I object” after each question, and then think up an objection.

Once Greene settled into her strategy, she seemed to be enjoying herself. With a smirk (almost a wink and nod) she could not recall anything, she didn’t know anything, she didn’t know what was in history books, and she had no idea what was posted on her social media.

She was really good at playing dumb.

Now, wouldn’t you think she’d be embarrassed to say she knows nothing about what is on her social media accounts and she doesn’t remember anything she did between November 2020 and January 6?

Nope. And here’s why:

The Right-Wing Base Cheers the lies

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s supporters know she’s lying and they cheer the lies. They’ll think she was clever for getting through that hearing so relaxed and cocky. If she wins, she will have really owned the libs.

Democratic leaders don’t want to be caught lying, but she’s not trying to be that.

If you want to be a democratic leader, truth matters because you can’t have rule of law without a shared truth or factuality.

On the other hand, if you’re trying to undermine democracy and rule of law, lies are the way to do it. This is from Hannah Arendt’s book The Origins of Totalitarianism:

People were bewildered after Greene’s hearing. “They keep lying and getting away with it!” That’s because their supporters cheer the lies. Marjorie Taylor Greene and radicalized right-wing of the Republican Party want to destroy and they know the lies destroy.

Here’s the hard part: Democracy contains the seeds of its own demise. Would-be autocrats use the institutions of democracy to thwart democracy. Freedom of speech means the freedom to lie.

This part is even harder: There will always be people who don’t want to live in a liberal democracy. They’ve always been with us. They were in favor of slavery, and racial segregation, and they want to go back to their mythologized idea of the American frontier when white men could do as they pleased without laws.

It seems to me that when we accept the reality that there will always be people who don’t want to live in a liberal democracy and will try to thwart it, we can adjust and do the necessary work. We stop expecting (and demanding) easy solutions.

I did a stint as a trial lawyer, and then did appeals exclusively. It gave me a different perspective: all my clients were indigents (they couldn’t afford to pay) and all had lost, which of course was why they were appealing. Put differently: My heart was broken every day.

In a perfect world, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s pants would have been on fire during that entire hearing.

I totally sympathize. See why I keep saying that putting together an airtight case is harder than it looks? Anyone still saying “There is enough evidence on Google to indict the entire Trump inner circle,” needs to listen to this hearing.

After Greene repeatedly insisted that she doesn’t always know what is posted on her social media account, Alexis asked me this:

Of course. A good prosecutor would not have gone to trial on this evidence, but these were not prosecutors. They were ordinary citizens represented by a nonprofit group.

Also, prosecutors would have access to more information.

What is next?

I make no predictions about how this case will come out. It could go either way. Greene was obviously lying, but the court could find that the voters didn’t have solid enough evidence linking Greene to the violence, or the procedures were unfair, or the law was unconstitutional, or this isn’t the way such matters should be decided. That’s what happened in Rep. Madison Cawthorn case in North Carolina when voters brought a similar challenge.

The parties have until next Thursday to file their final briefs. Then the administrative law judge will make a decision within a week. After that, the matter goes to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who makes a final decision. If he takes Greene off the ballot, she can then appeal to a regular court, and if she doesn’t like the result there, she goes to the Georgia Supreme Court. The Georgia courts are expediting this.

The irony of this case is that the provision in the 3rd section of the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution to keep former Confederates out of Congress. Now the matter is being settled by a conservative judge and secretary of state in a former Confederate state—and Marjorie Taylor Greene is a modern-day Confederate.

Kevin McCarthy was caught Lying on Tape

This week’s “scandal” was that Kevin McCarthy flatly denied having said that he advised Trump to resign. Then The New York Times produced a recording from shortly after the insurrection in which McCarthy told Liz Cheney that he advised Trump to resign.

I put “scandal” in quotations because normal people think the scandal was that McCarthy was caught lying.

In Trump World, the “scandal” was that McCarthy was disloyal to Trump. Yes, the right-wing is all over him for that, but not because he lied. It was to set an example of what happens when someone steps out of line and fails to show absolute loyalty to Dear Leader.

They’ll beat him up, then forgive him if he grovels. Or, his role as leader of the crazies will fall to someone who didn’t slip up and criticize Dear Leader. Elise Stefanik is reportedly sharpening her dagger with a view to taking his leadership position.

Trump World has now been put on notice: Don’t try to play it both ways. Don’t think you can grovel to Trump in public and then tell a different story behind closed doors. You never know if someone is recording the conversation, so you’d better be careful not to disrespect Dear Leader.

The Antidote to Republican Lies is to Hold on to Truth

The antidote: Enough people must hold on to truth to counter the lies, and enough people must defend democratic institutions to counter the constant battering they are receiving at the hands of those who want to destroy them. How? see this post.

More Updates

I updated the Merrick Garland FAQ page with the latest about Alex Jones. Here is what I added:

April 24: We learned that Alex Jones sent the DOJ a letter offering to give them information about January 6 in exchange for immunity.

The source of this information was Alex Jones’s lawyer (a criminal defense lawyer) not the DOJ, so we have to understand it as defense spin.

I can’t imagine Alex Jones would be of any use to the prosecution. The prosecutor would need at least somewhat reliable witnesses.

It seems to me that the only real conclusion we can draw is that Alex Jones knows that investigation is moving toward him. Indeed, The New York Times saw this as the latest sign of progress in the investigation: