Karl Rove rips fellow Republicans for whitewashing Capitol riot

GOP strategist asks what his party would do if tables were turned

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GOP strategist Karl Rove, who served in the second Bush administration and later as a Fox News contributor, excoriated members of his own party for continuing to whitewash the events of 6 January.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Mr Rove called it an embarrassment that members of his party were unwilling to support any efforts to hold former President Donald Trump or any of his inner circle responsible for the attack that left several police officers and rioters dead.

“On the anniversary of Jan. 6, I’m addressing squarely those Republicans who for a year have excused the actions of the rioters who stormed the Capitol, disrupted Congress as it received the Electoral College’s results, and violently attempted to overturn the election,” Mr Rove wrote.

If Democrats “had stormed the Capitol and attempted to keep Congress from receiving the Electoral College results for the 2016 presidential election," Mr Rove continued, the GOP would have “criticized them mercilessly and been right to do so”.

“Republicans would have torched any high official who encouraged violence or stood mute while it was waged and been right to do so. Republicans would have demanded an investigation to find who was responsible for the violence and been right to do so,” he continued, while rejecting out of hand the argument that Vice President Mike Pence had any constitutional authority to interfere in the Electoral College count.

Mr Rove’s remarks come as polls indicate that less than a third of GOP voters even support basic law enforcement efforts to charge those who directly participated in the violent attack in the Capitol with any crimes.

Republican members of the House were in near-unison as well on Thursday in their decision to skip a moment of silence held by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to honor members of US Capitol police who died as a result of the riot.

One Republican who was in attendance on Thursday was former Vice President Dick Cheney, who offered his own strong criticisms about GOP leadership in the House when asked about the issue of January 6 denial by reporters.

“It's not leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years,” said the former vice president.

Wide majorities of the GOP base still believe the falsehoods spread by Mr Trump and his allies about the 2020 election, including the false claim that Joe Biden won due to thousands of fraudulent ballots that were never found and which top federal officials including Mr Trump’s own hand-picked secretary of State said did not exist.

As a result, the former president remains the widespread favourite to win his party’s nomination in 2024.