With all due respect to Kevin Williamson, “show trial” is precisely what you would call hearings with no interest in anything but one-sided, un-cross-examined testimony from those pre-screened to agree with their foregone conclusion, conducted by a single party and the only two Republican representatives who don’t consider the proceedings illegitimate.
Mr. Williamson joins their ranks by calling the arrested on January 6 “turncoats,” when, 19 months later, almost none of them have been tried and many of them languish in a political prison having been charged, typically, with “entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds” and “disorderly conduct . . . parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building” — not insurrection. Perhaps Williamson can explain why the hearings can be useful before the prisoners of January 6 have even been tried — unless he has condemned them in his own mind without the need for legal disposition.
As to my suggestion that Cheney is a “turncoat,” I would refer Williamson to her approved campaign ad, running to no effect in Wyoming, where she is about to be resoundingly fired. “There is nothing more important [Liz Cheney] will ever do,” says Dick Cheney, “than lead the effort to assure that Donald Trump is never again in the Oval Office.”
Does it sound to Williamson that Cheney is a dispassionate, objective finder of fact, or participating in a show trial for her own political vendetta?
