Jan. 6 hearings give delegation last chance. Do they want to be marked as cowards?

At 6 p.m. Mountain Time tonight, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol will begin public hearings to present the findings of its yearlong investigation.

Our congressional delegation should attend to it closely. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, and Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher have an obligation to the nation they swore to preserve and defend — an obligation they have not so far met.

They need to speak out and denounce the Big Lie. The committee’s hearing gives them yet another occasion to do so.

They must also state clearly that the illegal actions of Jan. 6 were not “legitimate political discourse” and not some peaceful protest. The attack on the Capitol was an unprecedented attempt to undermine our government and its peaceful transfer of power, and a congressional investigation into such actions is not some “witch hunt” — it’s a necessary review of what happened, what led to it and what could and should have been done in a nation that, prior to Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, prided itself on its recognition of free and fair elections.

The committee, composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, is signaling that it has important evidence that the public has not yet seen. Our delegation should carefully consider that evidence.

But no matter what the committee reveals, an effort to set aside the legitimate outcome of the 2020 presidential election took place in plain public view. This includes both the physical violence from which our delegation had to flee to shelter, and efforts to manipulate government processes to change the outcome.

Those efforts failed this time, but they could be easily repeated. And if they ever succeed, democracy ends.

It is long past time for Crapo, Risch, Simpson and Fulcher to denounce these actions.

There were repeated, public calls for former Vice President Mike Pence to set aside the results of the election. Pence, honorably, rejected all such notions. Former law professor John Eastman disgraced himself by producing a series of memos arguing that such an action — a coup d’etat, to be clear — would be legal. He currently faces a legal ethics investigation from the California state bar.

Fulcher participated in this broader coup attempt by objecting to the certification of the election results. In doing so, he betrayed his country.

Former President Donald Trump’s responsibility for sparking and failing to halt the violence on Jan. 6 is known to our congressional delegation. Text messages to then-House Speaker Mark Meadows on the day of the attempted insurrection, recently published by CNN, make it clear that even those more closely aligned with Trump knew who was responsible at the time.

“My friend — I weep for our country today,” wrote Raúl Labrador, Republican candidate for Idaho attorney general. “Somebody needs to come out and calm this down. I believed in Trump and I would probably object to the certification today. You guys need to get Trump to say something to calm down the people, a tweet is not enough. This is crazy. I pray that people of goodwill can act to bring the tensions down. Praying for you and our nation.”

“Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything”

So our delegation should watch the hearings for new revelations. But more than that, they should fulfill the obligation they have so far failed to meet.

Stop lending silent toleration to the lie that Trump won the 2020 election. State clearly that the Big Lie is a lie.

Historians will certainly mark the year they failed to do so and call it cowardice. But there remains an opportunity for our delegation to redeem themselves, at least in part, by telling the truth they already know.