Trump’s Jan. 6 story becomes GOP’s status quo

President Trump’s narrative about Jan. 6, 2021, has become the dominant one in the Republican Party, as candidates and prominent lawmakers backing his claims about what happened that day have notched wins at the expense of GOP rivals with a different view.

The latest round of primaries all but completes a slow replacement of Republicans who disagree with Trump on the events of Jan. 6 and on whether or not the 2020 election was “stolen.”

In the Georgia governor’s race, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who denies former President Biden’s victory over Trump’s in 2020, defeated Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s pressure in early 2021 to “find” enough votes to change Trump’s loss in Georgia to a win.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who won a crucial endorsement from Trump ahead of his primary victory last week — spoke at the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 and has made false claims about the 2020 election being stolen.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the incumbent whom Paxton defeated, never supported impeaching Trump over Jan. 6. But he did say Trump’s “language was reckless” the following month and reportedly disagreed with the party’s characterization of the attack as “legitimate political discourse” in a resolution a year later.

The same pattern appeared in the Senate primary in Louisiana last month, where Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who in 2021 voted to impeach Trump for his role in instigating the Jan. 6 attack, lost to two Trump-backed Republicans.

Other Republicans with Jan. 6 views contrary to Trump’s are simply leaving Congress.

Among the 10 House Republicans who originally voted to impeach Trump, only two remain: Rep. Dan Newhouse (Wash.) and Rep. David Valadao (Calif.).

“A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable violence we witnessed in our nation’s capital,” Newhouse said in a statement at the time of the impeachment........

© The Hill