KY GOP’s Jan. 6 resolutions show how our democracy is being ‘wrongfully held’ | Opinion

Kudos to the 32 brave Republicans who stood up to the general lunacy in their party this weekend.

According to Herald-Leader reporter Austin Horn, the governing body of the Republican Party of Kentucky, otherwise known as the the Republican State Central Committee, adopted a resolution declaring that many people arrested after the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted coup at the Capitol had been “wrongfully held.”

Sadly, 34 people voted for it, so it just barely passed.

The 66 voters at the meeting this weekend make up just a fraction of the state central committee, which normally includes the party chairs and co-chairs of every county Republican party, as well as all GOP legislators.

So once again, a fringe minority takes over the possibly more rational majority. Just like the General Assembly because the exact same resolution was introduced Friday by one of the fringiest, Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield.

As Horn described it: “A number of false claims about the treatment of rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, have been circulated by national conservative media and politicians. A quarter of Americans believe the false claim that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6 riot, according to a recent poll. Tichenor repeated one of the falsehoods, stating that a number of people arrested for actions that day have been held for more than 1,000 days and still ‘haven’t had a trial or been charged.’”

While it is true that many defendants are still awaiting trial, there’s no evidence supporting the claim that people have been held that long without being charged. The Associated Press reported in February 2022 that all people arrested in connection with the riot have been charged with crimes.”

So even though this resolution was supported by a small slice of Republicans Party officials statewide, it’s still important to call out.

We are facing another election that Donald Trump might lose, and once again, he might call his supporters in to overturn the election results, a thing that had literally never happened in the history of our country until Jan. 6, 2021.

It is not patriotic to deface the U.S. Capitol, threaten police officers or put the vice-president in fear of his life. Federal prosecutors have — very slowly and methodically — built cases, arrested suspects, charged them and gone to trial.

To say otherwise is a lie and further gaslighting of the American public.

According to the New York Times, about 1,240 people have been arrested in connection with Jan. 6. As Horn noted: “The Department of Justice reported in October that nearly 600 people had pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the Capitol riot and nearly 100 had been convicted by a jury. The New York Times reports two people have been acquitted.”

It’s depressing that so many people believe lies from Fox News. Even worse is that one of Kentucky’s political parties would try to adopt these kinds of ideas as truth or that our elected leaders would try to put them into the public record.

Let’s hope the grown-ups in leadership and the House and Senate leave Tichenor’s resolution without resolution.

This is not a good start for new Republican Party of Kentucky chairman Robert Benvenuti, a Lexington lawyer. It’s not clear where he stands on these kinds of issues, and he declined to clarify them.

It may be hard for Republicans to return to sanity. A few brave Republicans, like Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Crofton, have publicly denounced Trump and the lies of Jan. 6 and beyond.

We need many more to leave the fringe so our democracy will no longer be wrongfully held hostage by Trump and his ilk.