I guess he had to try to say something, given the testimony of Barr, Stepien, and many others heard today on how they told Trump directly that he had lost the election and that there was insufficient reality-based grounds to challenge the result.  But the 12-page document—a rant, really—is embarrassingly bereft of any coherent, much less credible, claim that Trump was robbed of a victory that was rightfully his. The Hill’s Brett Samuels, in reporting this document’s existence (a copy of which is available as part of the report), carefully explains the facial inadequacy of its allegations, including its reliance on 2000 Mules, which former Attorney General Barr ridiculed in his testimony.

Trump also wrongly attacks the courts for being cowardly in refusing to entertain the merits of his claims. Ben Ginsberg as part of his testimony today explained that, although some of Trump’s lawsuits were properly dismissed on procedural grounds, other cases reached the merits and dismissed them as meritless. More to the point, as the conservative columnist Gary Abernathy argues in a Washington Post column, Trump had a civic obligation to accept the verdicts of the courts even if he disagreed with them. Democracy depends on relying upon the rule of law to resolve disputes over the outcome of elections. “Even if Trump goes to his grave believing the 2020 election was stolen, his inability to accept the results after exhausting reasonable legal avenues is an unforgivable dereliction of duty.” Trump’s project continues to be to wreck our constitutional republic if its lawful procedures fail to give him what he wants. It remains an open question whether his project will succeed or fail, although the committee’s hearing today must have made it harder for Trump’s delusional demagoguery to prevail.