Kustra: Rep. Russ Fulcher must resign for his complicity in Trump’s Capitol riot

Congressman Russ Fulcher should resign from the U.S. House of Representatives. His multiple actions encouraging and inciting those who ransacked the Capitol and caused deaths and destruction disqualify him from serving in the House of Representatives.

In perpetuating the absurd lies that the election was fraudulent, capped off by signing an objection to certification of votes deemed valid by election officials and courts across the country, he joined other renegade members of his party in inciting the Capitol riots that occurred in Washington, D.C. If all of this is not enough to demonstrate he is not fit for the office he holds, the timing of his final vote to object shows his utter lack of character and his failure to understand the implications of what had just occurred.

Imagine returning to the Capitol a few hours after you and your colleagues were endangered by a violent mob of domestic terrorists, learning of reports of death and serious injury, seeing doors and windows destroyed, offices ransacked and iconic statues and paintings defaced.

Who would still vote in support of partisan henchmen questioning valid election results after that?

The answer to that question is not Congressman Mike Simpson. He voted to certify the results even though he was foolish enough to join a groundless Texas lawsuit seeking to negate the votes in other states. (The U.S. Supreme Court put an end to that absurdity in short order.) Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch voted as Simpson did. Their votes upheld the validity of the electors from across the country even though I would argue that they should have, far earlier, acknowledged that Biden was president-elect. If they and other Republicans had done so, the insurrection at the Capitol likely never would have occurred.

Congressman Fulcher voted to hold up the certification of the electoral votes. Was he so clueless that he was unable to detect an opportunistic assault on a free and fair election by Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley who were currying favor with Trump’s base just to advance their prospects for the presidential race in 2024? Was the congressman so clueless that he was used and manipulated by right-wing conspirators who fed him with phony electoral and constitutional arguments that have no application to the facts at hand in the 2020 election outcome?

Or could it be that the Fulcher move is not as dumb as it looks, that he knew exactly what he was doing in undermining the electorate’s faith in the most fundamental instrument of our democracy — free and fair elections? Could it be that Fulcher is as guilty as Trump in misrepresenting the truth, in lying about an election that was not a landslide for Trump, as he claimed, but a win for Biden? Such actions set the stage for upending the results of future elections — the future of our democracy be damned.

Fulcher ignored the evidence stacked high and wide over recent weeks proving the 2020 presidential election was won fair and square by Joe Biden. USA Today reported last week that the president and his allies filed 62 lawsuits, losing 61, the only win being one of procedure to cure ballots and not fraud. On two occasions, the Supreme Court, even with three Trump appointees on the bench, refused to take up Trump-endorsed lawsuits that sought to overturn the election.

The recounts Trump requested in key states ended up delivering so few votes to him that it didn’t come close to changing any election result. (In fact, pointing to the futility of these efforts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “this election was not even particularly close.”) Election officials from both parties in the contested states signed off on election results that gave Biden their electoral votes. State and local Republican election officials in doing so were castigated by Trump, in some cases putting their lives in danger.

By Fulcher’s preaching that the presidential election was hijacked and corrupted, he may have incited Idaho’s knuckle-draggers to show up again with their guns and ammo as they did last year at the Idaho Capitol. Actions and words of public officials in these divisive and hostile times have consequences, and Fulcher’s citing of fraudulent claims, disputed by courts and election officials, added fuel to a dangerous fire.

The case of Josiah Colt of Meridian may be an example. He made headlines as one of the first to breach the Senate chamber, sitting with a raised fist in the chair that moments before seated the vice president of the United States. As he prepared to storm the Capitol, he filmed and posted a video calling the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “treasonous,” using a vile profanity. Who can say whether Fulcher and those voting with him implying the election was stolen might have encouraged Colt as Trump’s inflammatory speech to the rioters did that morning?

Although I believe Rep. Fulcher should resign, I doubt he is likely to do so. Anyone clinging to his job with such a dangerous agenda can’t be expected now to do the right thing. So where do we go from here? We can hope that a Republican guided by the Constitution to value country over party will challenge him in the next Republican primary and that a top-notch Democrat wins the Democratic primary to give the district the kind of candidates it deserves.

Press reports in the national media of corporations pledging to withhold future campaign donations from those who voted to contest the electoral votes offer a blueprint for Idaho’s corporate community to do the same.

Congressman Fulcher has attracted the attention of the Lincoln Project, a powerful group of Republican strategists who worked against Trump and for Biden in the campaign. In a recent Lincoln Project ad, Fulcher’s photo is shown among those they are committed to defeating in the future. These Lincoln Project Republicans who strategized and managed the campaigns of many sitting Republicans in Congress know how to win a Republican primary. Perhaps they can help hold Fulcher accountable for his actions in 2022.

The time has come for a voice of reason and moderation in the office now held by Congressman Fulcher.