If you had the slightest doubt remaining that the January 6 Committee was putting on a show trial, new information should lay those doubts to rest. We now know that Liz Cheney’s committee suppressed evidence exonerating Donald Trump of the charge that he intentionally fomented a riot and then lied about the facts in that suppressed evidence.

According to Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist:

Cheney and her committee falsely claimed they had “no evidence” to support Trump officials’ claims the White House had communicated its desire for 10,000 National Guard troops. In fact, an early transcribed interview conducted by the committee included precisely that evidence from a key source. The interview, which Cheney attended and personally participated in, was suppressed from public release until now.

Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato’s first transcribed interview with the committee was conducted on January 28, 2022. In it, he told Cheney and her investigators that he overheard White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows push Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to request as many National Guard troops as she needed to protect the city.

He also testified President Trump had suggested 10,000 would be needed to keep the peace at the public rallies and protests scheduled for January 6, 2021. Ornato also described White House frustration with Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller’s slow deployment of assistance on the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Of course, as we’re learning, these kinds of fundamental lies from the “get Trump” crowd are nothing new. For example, if you go looking for it, it’s a matter of public record that Fani Willis visited the Biden White House on February 24, 2023. That was six months before her carefully selected Grand Jury indicted Trump (and grand juries will indict a ham sandwich if told to do so). However, on the stand and under oath, Willis denied having visited the White House:

So, as I said, what Cheney did—suppressing facts and then lying about them—is par for the course in today’s America. This is troubling.

What we’re seeing from the “Get Trump” crowd is completely consistent with the rules of the game from both Marxism and Islam—the only morality is victory for the greater cause. Lying and dissimulation are appropriate and, indeed, worthy of applause if they deceive the enemy. And mind you, we’re not talking about a hot war, which has different rules. We’re talking about Fifth Column stuff that’s aimed at destroying a perceived enemy from within, like a Trojan Horse of disinformation.

While this may be the norm for Marxism and Islamic taqiyya, however, it hasn’t traditionally been the norm in America, a country predicated on Biblical principles. That’s because, beginning with the Ten Commandments and stretching throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, God and his prophets and preachers place a premium on honesty, both as an individual moral virtue and something necessary for a functioning society:

Exodus 20:16: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Deuteronomy 5:20: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Proverbs 12:19: “Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.”

Proverbs 12:22: “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”

Psalm 5:6: “You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

Psalm 34:13: “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.”

James 5:12: “But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

Ephesians 4:25: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”

Zechariah 8:16: “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace.”

Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Dennis Prager explains the tremendous importance of honesty as a primary moral virtue:

However, we live in a post-modern America, one in which people like Liz Cheney, an ostensible Christian, believe that the political end matters much more than the means, even if the means imperil her immortal soul.

John Adams fully understood that a democratic republic guided by a Constitution that places maximum weight on individual liberty would work only for people who believed in absolute moral precepts:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

And our Founders, no matter the brand of Christianity they practiced or their fealty to a non-denominational Biblical God, were fiercely religious people, although wise enough to avoid sectarian strife.

And just to be clear, there is a difference between puffery (exaggeration), a la Donald Trump, and the kind of explicit factual lies that Liz Cheney and the other January 6 Committee people engaged in. The one is Drama Queen stuff; the other is the kind of thing that destroys men’s souls and takes down nations.

Image: Moses and Aaron with the Ten Commandments, painted in 1674 by Aron de Chaves. Public domain.