The January 6 attempted coup was a dark day in American history | Opinion

Let's not focus simply on what occurred on that day, because there was a long running effort to derail and delegitimize effects of the election—as you know, beginning with President Trump's long effort first to inform Americans that the only way he would lose would be if the election were rigged and it were fraudulent. He was warning people six or seven months before November that that was going to happen. And then of course, on election night, he repeated it and said the election was stolen. And so there's a long-running gambit undertaken here by the former president and his supporters to delegitimize the election—and to declare that Joe Biden was, in fact, an illegitimate president. That's all part of the effort to bring down our constitutional government.