Christie Whitman
June 22, 2022
During yesterday’s January 6th committee hearings, we got an inside look at the pressure Trump put on ordinary people and elected officials alike. Arizona’s Republican state House speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and COO Gabe Sterling, and poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, are patriots who were simply doing their civic duty to ensure a safe and accurate outcome of the 2020 election.
Now their lives have been upended; their lives and those of their families threatened. Even Shaye’s grandmother was accosted and told to move from her home by the FBI. Families are being terrified by demonstrators. Bowers said he dreads Saturdays when protesters show up to his home to call him a pedophile and harass his neighbors.
All of this abuse is because of one man. We in America are better than this and we the people are the only way to stop this ongoing threat to our democracy.
What those who testified yesterday showed was true courage and leadership. They refused to back down against an unending barrage of pressure from those representing the then President who, among other things, accused Shay Moss and her mother of actually breaking the law.
These true patriots deserve our support. We need to have their backs in whatever way we can do it – whether it’s counterprotesting when the Trump forces gather or speaking out for what they’ve done to preserve our form of government and protect our elections.
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
…Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside.”
– Poet and noted abolitionist James Russell Lowell
I am so thankful for bipartisan membership and staff of the January 6th commission for the extraordinary work they’ve done to put a spotlight on what has, and continues to be, damaging to our nation.