What Would George Washington Say About Jan. 6? He Tried to Warn Us

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Jul 1, 2022

But the hearings have come up with so much damning evidence against Trump and his cronies that the former president reportedly is upset that House GOP leader McCarthy didn’t fight to put more Republicans on the committee instead of fighting to keep them off.

Heading into the July 4 recess, the most dramatic testimony came from Cassidy Hutchinson, 26, a former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. She will probably be most remembered for breaking the White House code of silence on the alleged ketchup caper.

She recounted how she had walked into the Oval Office dining room after Trump heard that Attorney General Bill Barr said he had not seen enough fraud in the 2020 election to have changed the outcome. Trump was not happy.

After she noticed “there was ketchup, dripping down the wall,” and a shattered porcelain plate on the floor, she said the valet explained that the president had “thrown his lunch against the wall.”

She also recounted hearing that Trump lunged for the steering wheel when his Secret Service detail refused to take him to the Capitol during the riot. Parts of the story have been disputed by Trump and others, but I, for one, am waiting for them to say that, as Hutchinson did, under oath.

The ketchup and Secret Service episode are only tantalizing sidelights to the main story, which is Trump’s refusal to leave office peacefully, his apparent attempts to cheat his way back into power and apparent efforts by his fellow partisans to help him do it and try to cover it up.

A parade of Trump’s associates and congressional allies reportedly have sought blanket pardons, making us all wonder, what did they hope to be pardoned for?

And what, I wonder, would Washington say? Probably, “I tried to warn you.”

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)