As predicted, the shadow of Arizona loomed substantial throughout the 1st Home listening to into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on our nation’s Capitol and our way of lifestyle.

There were the oh-so Happy Boys from our state, identifiable by their orange hats and armbands that day as they ripped down barricades and attacked Capitol law enforcement.

There had been the phony electors, engaged not in some symbolic protest as very first imagined but as co-conspirators in a coordinated plot to overturn democracy. People today like point out GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, and Jim Lamon, who is now hoping we will elect him to the U.S. Senate, and state Rep. Jake Hoffman and former Rep. Anthony Kern, who is functioning for the Legislature, getting been turned out by voters two yrs back.

And there was the virtually apoplectic Rep. Andy Biggs, who before on Thursday took to the Dwelling flooring – the really area in which 17 months ago Capitol law enforcement experienced to draw their guns to maintain back the mob – and termed Thursday’s hearing “an illegitimate exhibit trial”.

Biggs is a lot more worried about the dimensions of tortillas

A Democrat-engineered distraction from that which The us cares most about:

The price tag of tortillas.

“They really do not want you speaking about, ‘Hey, the size of that pack of tortillas that I just bought very last 7 days in advance of it arrived out, it utilised to search like the regular corn tortillas, now they glance like mini tortillas,’ ” Biggs mentioned.

“Same selling price, the similar packaging,” he continued. “They do not want you chatting about that.”

Rep. Biggs, have faith in me when I say that Americans can multi-undertaking. We can – and do – fear about staggering inflation and the fact that you now have to consider out a lender bank loan to fill up your fuel tank.

But pretty a great deal of us also fret these days about the future of democracy and the shattering of a hundreds of years-aged custom of the peaceful transfer of electrical power.

This was not just spur-of-the-minute madness

Thursday’s hearing painted an unattractive photograph, a single that’ll be crammed out as this month’s hearings proceed.  What we can see so far suggests that one thing extra than just shameful transpired on Jan. 6, 2021, a corruption that wasn’t basically the regrettable final result of some spur-of-the-minute madness by impassioned “patriots” who simply just acquired carried absent.

Tale proceeds

It was cautiously planned and meticulously coordinated – from the seeds of doubt deeply planted to erode trust in our elections … to the bogus “electors” who ended up component of a scheme to steal the vote in Arizona and other swing states … to the storming of the Capitol to consider to stop Joe Biden from turning into president.

And specified Arizonans surface to be in on it up to their eyeballs.

An additional watch: Jan. 6 video is damning. Make a identical one about riots on the left

Which provides us back to the illustrious Rep. Biggs, who genuinely, seriously, reeeeally did not want The us to see the evidence place forth by the Home pick out committee investigating Jan. 6.

The committee, he charged, is “not made to discover fact. It is not developed to appear up with a reputable legislative goal.”  It is, he charged, engaged in “partisan warfare”.

Multiple congressmen sought pardons, Cheney reported

A couple hrs afterwards, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney began dropping bombshells. Amid them, that certain of her fellow Republican colleagues asked then-President Donald Trump to pardon them for their participation in functions major up to the Jan. 6 assault.

“Rep. Scott Perry (of Pennsylvania)  … has refused to testify here,” explained Cheney, who is vice chair of the Dwelling decide on committee. “As you will see, Rep. Perry contacted the White Residence in the weeks just after Jan. 6 to seek a presidential pardon. Many other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in making an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.”

She has not named names … nonetheless … but we now have a quite very good strategy who individuals various other congressmen were: Household Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy of California and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama and yep, Andy Biggs.

All 5 were being subpoenaed to testify. All five refused.

In a May perhaps letter to Biggs, the committee famous that former White Residence personnel have recognized him as a person of the lawmakers who questioned to be pardoned for “activities taken in link with President Trump’s initiatives to overturn the effects of the 2020 presidential election”.

For what, you ask?

If Biggs sought a pardon, accurately what was it for?

We know that he attended White House organizing sessions to retain Trump in office environment (as did Reps. Debbie Lesko and Paul Gosar). We know that he assisted distribute the untrue narrative that the election was stolen. Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander has mentioned that he, Biggs, Brooks and Gosar “schemed up” the Jan. 6 rally to set pressure on Congress not to certify the vote – a claim that all three congressmen have denied.

So why the have to have for a pardon, Rep. Biggs?

A different look at: Trump trashes his daughter for becoming honest about Jan. 6

You should not appear an answer – from Biggs, in any case. He’s far too occupied fuming in excess of the shrinking sizing of tortillas to address the growing dimensions of thoughts about what purpose he performed in a person of democracy’s darkest days.

“The Democrats have basically corrupted every single institution in The united states,” the congressman reported on Thursday.

The just one who on Jan. 6, 2021, urged Congress to reject the duly-certified final results of the election in his individual dwelling condition.

Arrive at Roberts at [email protected]. Comply with her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rep. Andy Biggs genuinely hates the Jan. 6 listening to. Now we know why