On January 6th Bristol County Sheriff and Massachusetts Trump campaign Chair Thomas M. Hodgson condemned in the weakest terms possible the violence of fellow Trump supporters storming the Capitol building, planting bombs, preparing to lynch both legislators and the Vice President, and attempting to prevent certification of Electoral College votes. Hodgson tweeted, “What happened at the United States Capitol today was outrageous and completely unacceptable. It is never acceptable or appropriate for anyone to resort to violence and malicious destruction to express grievances.”
Hodgson, a supporter of United Cape Patriots, a Massachusetts group that descended on the Capitol on January 6th, echoed the rioters’ false claim that the vote had been stolen: “The fastest way to end the ongoing debate over elections issues and the deep divide in our country is to have an audit prior to Jan. 20 so both Democrats and Republicans can be assured they can continue to have faith in our elections.” The problem is, post-election vote audits are not a Constitutionally-permitted alternative to counting Electoral College votes that the states have already certified.
The January 6th siege, which claimed the life of at least one police officer, was barely two months from the date Hodgson praised Trump for his “commitment to uphold the rule of law and support law enforcement in our mission to keep our families, neighborhoods and nation safe.”
Hodgson hypocritically claimed right before the election that Trump’s enemies were “attempting a ‘coup’ based on their ‘Russian Hoax’, in an attempt to deny the American people the legitimate outcome based on our nation’s electoral process.” Hodgson’s non-condemnation of the protesters and complete dismissal of the President’s responsibility for inflaming them, tell us a lot about his concern for the electoral process, the rule of law, or even Hodgson’s support of law enforcement. There is none.
The Bristol County Sheriff knows full well that marauding rioters at the Capitol had been enraged by Trump’s non-stop lies that the presidential election was fraudulently stolen from him, an assertion that Hodgson has not sufficiently distanced himself from.
If Hodgson is truly sad at “disorderly and violent behavior” then let him acknowledge the Massachusetts Attorney General’s report that he, himself, was largely responsible for an unjustified attack on detainees in his own jail. Hodgson, who has repeatedly been found by both state and federal judges to have violated the civil rights of his prisoners, personally attacked and unleashed dogs on non-resisting ICE detainees on May 1st, 2020. Hodgson would not consent to be interviewed by the AG, and the ACLU has had to sue for tapes of the riot that Hodgson provoked, which Hodgson will not release.
It seems that Hodgson shares a lot of political DNA with the Capitol rioters. And Hodgson’s well-established neo-Confederate and his white supremacist connections make his perfunctory condemnations of white supremacist and white militia violence meaningless.
If Tom Hodgson truly wants “an election audit before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration” — an audit whose only goal is erasing over 60 state court rulings rejecting challenges to their election outcomes — he ought to welcome audits of his own jail. But Hodgson crudely dismissed the Attorney General’s report: “It’s about halfway down the sewer pipe,” Hodgson said. “That’s about how much value I put into the attorney general’s recommendations that are politically motivated.”
The validity of the presidential election was certified in fifty states, upheld by a multitude of court decisions, and then supported by Republican and Democratic officials who adhered to their oaths of office. But that’s not good enough for Hodgson, who only a day after the coup attempt said, “I do believe that there’s likely fraud, based on what I’ve seen so far, it appears that [fraud] is very likely.”
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Capitol insurrectionists were fed false and fantastical conspiracy theories that undermined any possibility of accepting a valid election outcome. They assembled, marched and viciously attacked the Capitol because of those lies.
Lies that Hodgson continues to spread.
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