The question before the U.S. House of Representatives wasn’t complicated or partisan. It was a question of whether Congress, in service to its need to investigate in order to legislate, could enforce a lawful subpoena.
What made the issue controversial was the nearly total opposition of House Republicans. These Republicans attempted to stop a resolution referring to the Justice Department for possible prosecution of one Steve Bannon, a figure widely implicated in the planning and execution of the pro-Trump Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon invoked a nonsensical reason for refusing to produce for Congress documents and his own testimony. He claimed he was subject to a declaration of “executive privilege” by the former president, even though Bannon is a private citizen who hasn’t worked in the White House since Donald Trump fired him in August of 2017.
The special House committee investigating Jan. 6 said, in essence: Wait a minute. It doesn’t work that way. A congressional subpoena is just as valid, just as lawful as any summons any citizen might receive to produce records or appear in court.
Yet, Idaho’s two members of Congress — along with 200 fellow cowards — ignored these facts and in essence said Bannon could break the law. In a way, the vote of Rep. Russ Fulcher was to be expected. He actively participated in the plot to reject legally certified Electoral College votes from several states. Fulcher even bragged about his role in the insurrection the very morning the mob stormed the Capitol chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
The vote to let Bannon flaunt a congressional subpoena that is hard to square — actually hard to stomach — is the vote of Rep. Mike Simpson. He knows better. At least he once did. The simple truth is Simpson gave in to cowardness. He’s afraid of Trump. He is even more afraid of his constituents.
Simpson violated — Fulcher did, too — his oath of office to defend the laws and Constitution of the United States. And he did it for the smallest, most selfish reason — to protect his job, which has clearly become more important to him than anything else.
That may seem a harsh verdict on a politician who has done some good for Idaho in his long career. But sadly it’s the truth. Simpson has become a metaphor for what has happened to the modern, Trump-infected Republican Party. Consider the congressman’s evolution.
After the “Access Hollywood” tape, Simpson called Trump “unfit.”
The Idaho congressman was more prescient than he could have possibly known when he said as the Trump-Russian investigation continued:
“What I’m worried about is, in the early 1970s, politicians like me were standing around saying, ‘Nixon’s OK. He didn’t do anything.’ And look what it led to,” Simpson said. “And every day there is something that adds on to it.”
As Trump railed in the summer of 2017 about Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but also repeatedly failed to offer an alternative, Simpson grew exasperated with a president who displayed no ability to grow into the job.
“I don’t even pay any attention to what is going on with the administration because I don’t care,” Simpson told one interviewer. “They’re a distraction. The family is a distraction. The president is a distraction.”
Explaining his frustrations, Simpson said, “At first, it was ‘Well yeah, this is the guy we elected. He’ll learn, he’ll learn.’ And you just don’t see that happening.”
When Trump threatened to declare an emergency and divert funds from military construction projects to build his border wall, Simpson pushed back gently.
“It’s not the way to do it. I can understand why they’re looking at it,” Simpson told the Washington Post. “I don’t like the idea of pulling money out of defense and military construction and the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s not a good option.”
But when Trump went ahead and declared a national emergency, Simpson went along.
“I’ll be real honest,” Simpson said. “If Obama had done this, Republicans would be going nuts. That’s just the reality.” Simpson justified his about face on the dubious grounds, particularly coming from a senior House appropriator, that Trump had the authority to usurp the congressional power of the purse.
On several occasions during the first 18 months of the former guy’s presidency, Simpson seemed to be on the verge of breaking with Trump. Yet the break never came and as the 2020 election approached and Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, nationally and in Idaho, grew even stronger.
Simpson never again deviated, even a bit, from the Trump line.
That line has now led to Simpson’s vote to give Bannon, a guy who continues to spread lies, encourage violence and predicted the anarchy of Jan. 6, a pass.
Simpson’s explanation of his vote for Bannon certainly must rank as one of the most disingenuous statements ever penned by an Idaho politician. He might have used the moment to educate and inform about the compelling need to understand who was behind the plot that nearly resulted in an American coup. He might have upheld the rule of law. He did the opposite.
“(House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Commission has become the partisan circus I wanted to avoid,” Simpson tweeted. “Congress doesn’t get to play law enforcement when it’s politically convenient for the Dems just to score political points.”
Partisan circus? Political points? What does the congressman think happened on Jan. 6 while he and his colleagues hid from the mob that came for them?
When a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, died after began assaulted on Jan. 6, Simpson said: “His family deserves our prayers and his perpetrators deserve prosecution to the fullest extent.”
Congress and the American people are entitled to find out if Bannon was one of those “perpetrators.” If he was involved, he almost certainly has information that leads back directly to the former president.
Mike Simpson, the guy who once saw straight through the rot pervading his party, has with his Bannon vote — and his refusal to condemn the kooks, insurrectionists and law evaders in his own party — thrown all in with the effort to ignore the attempted coup he lived through. Now he’s helping rewrite the history of what happened.
Simpson’s political calculation was simple, if cynical. If he voted against Bannon, Trump would turn on him.
Simpson voted to ignore Bannon’s lawbreaking to save his political career.
He folded.
The pre-Trump Mike Simpson would be appalled by the post-Jan.6 version. That this once principled, independent politician now fits so well in the modern GOP tells us how low we’ve fallen.
Johnson served as press secretary and chief of staff to the late former Idaho Gov. Cecil D. Andrus. He lives in Manzanita, Ore.
