Jan. 6 panel holds up public officials as ‘backbone of democracy’

In congressional hearings this week, the Jan. 6 committee portrayed public officials as integral to preserving the American republic.

One by one, the committee brought them forward to explain why they had resisted then-President Donald Trump’s entreaties to declare the 2020 election fraudulent – and the blowback they have faced as a result. Nearly all of them were Republicans who had voted for Mr. Trump and/or worked in his administration.

There was Arizona GOP Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, who refused to bend out of fidelity to the Constitution even as protesters surrounded his home with megaphones, disturbing his gravely ill daughter. 

There was Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was doxxed and his life threatened, yet refused to stand down.

And there was Richard Donoghue, the Justice Department’s No. 2, who was called unexpectedly into the Oval Office days before Jan. 6. He sat before the president in an Army T-shirt, jeans, and muddy boots and told Mr. Trump