According to Newsweek, a Democratic congresswoman on the committee investigating the Capitol Building insurrection of January 6, 2021 has criticized Republicans for being “willing to lie” to achieve/retain their power.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D. CA), in a Sunday interview with The Guardian, compared the reluctance of some GOP Congresspeople to testify to some of the Republicans who initially defended former President Richard Nixon during Watergate.

Via Twitter / @Newsweek

Lofgren said:

“The difference with the Republican leadership today is that they know they are lying. It’s pretty clear that some of my Republican colleagues—not all—are willing to lie for power.”

And continued:

“I hope they will tell the complete truth about what happened in a way that can be accepted and understood by the broad spectrum of American society, leading to a reinvigorated love of our democratic republic and system of elections.”

January 6 Capitol Riots via Flickr / Tyler Merbler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Newsweek reminds readers that the official stance of the Republican’s congressional leadership is that the violence that several dead, including law enforcement officials, and sought to inflict harm on members of congress as they attempted to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory were actually a part of a “legitimate political discourse.” That phrase was used by the Republican National Committee as they voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger over their acceptance of roles in congressional investigations into the violence .

Trump cronies Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, and Peter Navarro, for example, have ignored congressional subpoenas and have been held in criminal contempt of Congress for it.  Others, like Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Minority Leader in the Houser, have invoked their fifth amendment right to remain silent.

Trump Supporters storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 via Flickr / Tyler Merbler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Lofgren concluded by noting we live in very different times than the days of Watergate:

“Today people are getting their information from a multiplicity of sources, and we need to deal with that and make sure we are finding people where they are.”

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Christopher Powell