Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall owe good Republicans this truth about the lies of Jan. 6 | Opinion

It’s been two years since Jan. 6, 2021. We all know what Josh Hawley was doing the day of the assault on the U.S. Capitol: Pumping his fist in solidarity with the gathering mob early in the afternoon. Then sprinting away from the building as insurrectionists smashed through doors and windows, sending him and other lawmakers scrambling for safety. And finally, just hours later, returning to the Senate floor to play to the cameras as the face of the theatrical, futile attempt to overturn the election Donald Trump had just lost.

Now, thanks to new documents released over the weekend by the House committee investigating the plot to overthrow the government, we have a clue about what Missouri’s then-junior senator was up to the day before, too: playing phone tag with the Trump White House.

“POTUS instructed operator to call back with Senator Josh Hawley” reads a switchboard record from 9:37 a.m. The same notation appears again at 10:04, then once more at 10:11. At 10:22, the operator told Trump a message had been left for Hawley. That evening at 9:21 p.m., Trump had the operator “call back with” Hawley, and at 9:52 the operator reported that another message had been left for the senator.

And those are the communications we know about. There’s a curious, extended break in the logs, with no calls at all listed from 11:20 a.m. to 8:18 p.m. That’s a lot longer than the 18-1/2 minute gap in the Nixon tapes that became part of Watergate lore.

You may remember that in March 2021, Hawley appeared unsettled as he quizzed FBI Director Christopher Wray about how the bureau might use geolocation data and other information from rioters’ cellphones in its investigation. We wonder whose privacy he was concerned about most.

Today, we’re well aware of the events leading up to the coup attempt, documented methodically by the House committee and unfurled publicly in real time to any observer of the mighty MAGA-world online machine. Starting with Trump’s now-notorious Dec. 19, 2020, tweet — “Be there, will be wild!” — his supporters began openly sharing their plans for the insurrection in social media. Hawley and 11 other GOP senators announced on Jan. 2 that they’d object to certifying the Electoral College tally (though the “Sedition Caucus” had shrunk to only eight by the day of the vote). Among them was Kansas freshman Roger Marshall — making the charade his first official act as U.S. senator.

Shame of Capitol insurrection will live in history

The scenes from the putsch — would-be revolutionaries scaling the exterior walls of the Capitol, panicked lawmakers ducking for cover in the House chamber, shirtless “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley shouting through a megaphone from the Senate dais — are still fresh in our minds.

But posterity will forever remember those images, as potent as any recorded in the arduous road toward forming the union that seems increasingly imperfect these days. The enormity of the lawlessness will only grow as we learn more about it. Donald Trump, and his erratic four-year term of deceit and division, will not be rehabilitated with time.

Hawley, meanwhile, is unapologetic for his role in bringing us to that shameful day (and has proudly boasted that it helps raise campaign cash). Today, he continues to echo right-wing attacks on the FBI, while brazenly violating U.S. copyright law by selling mugs and T-shirts stealing photojournalist Francis Chung’s iconic picture of his salute to the mob. Marshall has adopted a less defiant stance, saying in 2021 that the American people want to “move on” from the insurrection — yet he’s still vowed to help “get people out of jail from the Jan. 6.”

Hawley is a Yale- and Stanford-educated lawyer. Marshall’s a physician. Surely neither can believe the increasingly unhinged ravings of a reality TV star who pulled off a hostile takeover of their party by bashing Ivy-educated elites. Surely neither can continue to stand by their baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election — but only for president. Could they really have imagined that if they’d somehow reinstalled a man who lost the popular vote by more than 7 million, it all would have worked out in the end?

On this somber anniversary, we probably can’t ask for Hawley, Marshall and their GOP fellow travelers to reveal fully what they knew and when they knew it about planning the riot that left people dead and our democracy as fragile as ever. Their continuing reticence helps further the chaos that continues to manifest in their party’s humiliating meltdown as seen in the in-fighting in the House this week.

But for the good of the nation — and for their own chance at rehabilitation, not to mention their consciences — Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall should come clean about one thing: They should apologize to every honest Republican voter for not telling them the truth about the leader of their party. That he lied to them directly about subjects big and small throughout his presidency, and that they defended and deflected those lies for short-sighted political advantage.

That may be their last, best chance to land on the right side of history.

This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 6:30 AM.