THREAD. I had to take a little break from political Twitter to gather my thoughts on how the GOP is responding to impeachment. I find that in the face of gaslighting, it is useful to repeat things that we know to be true, and then assess the choices from there. To wit:

2. TRUTH #1: Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. He could not accept this outcome. Because of his inability to accept this outcome, he manufactured a Big Lie that he *did* win the election, and put all of the official powers at his disposal to force this to be the case

3. TRUTH #2: As part of this effort, he attempted to 1) shakedown the Secretary of State of Georgia to manufacture 11,780 "extra" votes that would give him a victory in that state; 2) conspired with officials at DOJ to manufacture false cases of voter fraud in Georgia

4. and 3) rallied his supporters using the Big Lie to convene in Washington, D.C. to "fight" against Congress' Electoral College certification. When this became a violent insurrection at the Capitol, he refused to use his power to either verbally disavow that insurrection or

5. use his official authority to permit the National Guard and other reinforcement mechanisms to protect the official and constitutional functions of a coequal branch of government. In so doing, he violated his oath of office.