Chris Stirewalt Blasts ‘Craven Lust for Power’ from Trump, GOP Allies Ahead of Jan 6 Committee Testimony
Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt offered an early glimpse into his testimony before the January 6 Committee by lamenting the riot’s continued implications for the country.
Stirewalt’s involvement in the committee’s Monday hearing indicates he will be asked to talk about former President Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was corrupted by mass fraud and “stolen” from him. Stirewalt correctly covered the results of the election at Fox News before he was let go from the network, and he has been critical of his old employer since then for perpetuating the Big Lie and minimizing the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
House before his testimony, Stirewalt — who currently serves as political editor for NewsNation — released a column for The Dispatch about Trump’s attempts to hold onto power, plus Trump’s Republican congressional allies who sought to “vandalize the Constitution to help him.” Stirewalt condemned the plot as “bigger” than Watergate before saying “Trump was the first president ever to pose a credible threat to the peaceful transfer of presidential power that has been our inheritance for 226 years. Acts of such monstrous self interest and the craven lust for power evinced by the behavior of many in the Republican Party demanded a response of real statesmanship and courage; first from Republicans who had not succumbed to the scheme and then from Democrats.”
From there, Stirewalt remarked “both parties failed that test” through numerous acts of “partisan self-interest” and political squabbling following the Capitol riot. He offered praise for the committee’s conduct in its first televised hearing, however, and he proceeded to remark on his own place in today’s hearing.
From The Dispatch:
By the time you read this I may already have finished testifying, and my part is a small one, but I’m not going to write here about what I have to say. I’m still not entirely sure what I will say or what may happen, and don’t want to close any doors or create any expectations. I had a pretty good perch for the 2020 election and was part of the best decision desk in the news business on election night. I’m still so proud of the work we did—we beat the competition and stuck the landing. All I can do is tell the truth about my work and hope for the best.
But I do want to tell you why I agreed to testify before this committee, despite the straitened circumstances of its creation and the mistakes that were made along the way: because it is a duly empaneled committee of the United States Congress, and its chairman asked me to come forward and answer questions. I have no First Amendment grounds on which to refuse since I am not being asked to reveal a source or something like that. If I was in that spot, I would dig in my heels and fight until they either locked me up or let me go. But I have no such grounds.
I spend a lot of time talking about the need for stronger institutions and how Congress must reclaim its status as the first among equal branches. How could I then resist when Congress made a request of me that falls well within its powers? I would rather not have to face the same anger I did after we called Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020. I have no interest in starring in the sequel to that one. But neither could I find an acceptable reason as a citizen to refuse, so I will go. It is not a courageous thing for me to do, only unavoidable.
As a journalist, I feel very uncomfortable even playing this small role in these events. The first rule for my vocation is to tell the truth as best as you can, and the second is to stay the hell out of the story. I will fail in the latter today, but aim for the former.
