OPINION: Cheers and Jeers: Scared spitless to condemn mass pardon

JEERS ... to Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little and Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

Scattered throughout Washington, D.C., this week were a handful of Republicans brave enough to condemn President Donald Trump’s mass pardon of violent insurrectionists who at his behest stormed the U.S. Capitol and attacked police officers who stood between them and members of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska: “I’m disappointed to see that.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.: “... It’s wrong to assault anybody — but certainly to assault an officer.”

Sen.Thom Tillis, R-N.C.: “I just can’t agree.”

But nothing like that was on display when the Spokesman-Review’s Orion Donovon Smith approached Little, who was attending Trump’s inauguration.

“Well, I mean, we pardon people all the time for a variety of reasons, so you’ve just got to look at all the reasons,” he said. “We’ve got a lot bigger fish to fry than that.”

Wasn’t it Little who had to fend off Trump’s choice for governor in 2022, former Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who allied with extremists groups, including the white nationalist America First Political Action Conference?

If anyone has reason for outrage, it’s Risch, whose Capitol Hill office got ransacked by a Jan. 6 thug. But Risch ended the interview: “You’re going where I told you not to go.”

And Crapo — who once had enough political backbone to revoke his endorsement of the GOP nominee after the “Access Hollywood” disclosure in 2016 — dodged and weaved.

“I haven’t followed closely what President Trump has said that he may do or not do in terms of pardons,” Crapo said initially. “So I guess I just have to defer right now responding to that, because I don’t know exactly what he may have said or may be thinking of.”

Once the pardons came through, Crapo’s spokesperson issued a no comment.

Why are they cowering?

Do they fear a Trump social media post provoking a right-wing political challenge?

Or are they scared for their own safety and that of their families?

After Jan. 6, anything’s possible.

CHEERS ... to Pam Hemphill, of Boise.

Little, Crapo and Risch may be scared spitless of Trump.

Not this 71-year-old.

Convicted for her role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, Hemphill took her medicine — two months in jail, three years of probation and a $500 fine — and then broke free from Trump’s cult of personality.

The rioters weren’t the victims.

Trump lost the 2020 election.

And the heroes that day were the police officers who got mangled in the rampage.

So she’s telling Trump what he can do with his pardon.

“Accepting the pardon would be an insult to the Capitol Police officers, to the rule of law, to our nation,” Hemphill told the Idaho Statesman’s Sally Krutzig. “The J6 criminals are trying to rewrite history by saying it was not a riot; it wasn’t an insurrection. I don’t want to be a part of their trying to rewrite what happened that day.”

It’s easy to keep your head down. Admitting — in public — you were duped by sinister leaders takes nerve.

Here’s at least one Idahoan who can hold her head up.

JEERS ... to state Sen. Dan “don’t piss him off” Foreman, R-Viola.

He’s reviving his failed campaign to repeal the one legal impediment safeguarding Lewiston from another episode of heavily armed activists invading and occupying its downtown the way Defend Lewiston and Liberate Idaho did on D-Day 2020.

That law — enacted during a period of Ku Klux Klan resurgence during the 1920s — states: “No body of men, other than the regularly organized national guard, the unorganized militia when called into service of the state, or of the United States, and except such as are regularly recognized and provided for by the laws of the state of Idaho and of the United States, shall associate themselves together as a military company or organization, or parade in public with firearms in any city or town of this state.”

After then-Lewiston Police Chief Budd Hurd threw up his hands at the armed occupation, saying he “had no choice but to allow these people to occupy downtown. ... I had no reason not to,” Mary B. McCord of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center pointed out that provision.

Relying on a similar statute, McCord’s organization successfully sued the people responsible for the deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist riot at Charlottesville, Va. Nine people who endured physical or emotional suffering during that rally collected $26 million in damages against 17 white nationalists.

Why is Foreman so eager to put out a welcome mat to armed militias? With a presidential pardon in their pockets, they don’t need any encouragement.

CHEERS ... to former House Education Committee Chairperson Julie Yamamoto, R-Caldwell.

Standing up to the well-financed, out-of-state, pro-voucher movement cost Yamamoto her seat in the Idaho House last year.

She’s not shying away from the battle.

“It’s not too late to tell the legislators that Idaho does not have to touch this politically motivated stove to know that it’s hot, that the taxpayer burn is going to be huge and it’s not going to go away,” Yamamoto this week announced to a news conference held by the Idaho Education Association, Idaho Association of School Administrators and Idaho School Boards Association.

Given the Legislature’s makeup, this is going to be an uphill fight. For Yamamoto to remain involved demonstrates this career educator’s commitment, courage and strength. — M.T.