New York Times' Bruni: Trump loyalists working with Jan. 6 committee trying to 'launder' their 'sycophancy'

Former Attorney General William Barr criticized by New York Times' Frank Bruni for statements given to Jan. 6 Committee. 

In the latest New York Times newsletter, contributing opinion writer Frank Bruni condemned former Trump administration officials for cooperating with the January 6 committee, claiming they are only doing so in a cynical attempt launder their reputations after supporting Trump.

Bruni began his piece by describing the Jan. 6 committee hearings as "the coalescence of scattered revelations into a clearer, cleaner narrative; an unblinking appraisal of the madness of King Donald; an opportunity for Americans to reflect on how close things came, and might yet come, to falling apart."

"But for Bill Barr, Bill Stepien, Ivanka Trump and others, they are also something else," he said. "They are a trip to the reputation laundromat (or perhaps, for this crowd, the reputation dry cleaner)," Bruni declared, accusing these Trump loyalists of using the hearings to wash away their association with the Trump administration. 

"Donald Trump’s onetime acolytes are trying to expunge the stain of their sycophancy. And they’re betting that in a country and era of fickle attention spans and feeble memories, they’ll have more luck with that spot than Lady Macbeth did with hers," Bruni wrote. 

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Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., makes remarks during the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The author refused any thought that any of these loyalists and their testimony reflected genuine sorrow or change of heart. "But her, Barr’s and Stepien’s words don’t amount to moral reckonings. They reflect professional calculations," Bruni argued.

 "If you were still working for Trump by the fourth year of his presidency, there was nothing normal about you. If you served that campaign, during which Trump repeatedly telegraphed his intention to declare any result other than victory an illegitimate one, there was nothing normal about you," he stated. 

"And if, in the weeks after Election Day, you finally stopped abetting his delusions, midwifing his megalomania and whispering sweet reassurances in his ear, you weren’t returning to normal. You were simply cutting your losses," Bruni concluded, while adding that loyalists who did so were just looking for a "sturdier, steadier horse" to hitch themselves to.

Bruni quoted an article from New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser which refused to let Stepien and Barr off the hook for their work under Trump just because they’re aiding the committee. She wrote that they’re both "not only Trump’s accusers but also first-class enablers of Trump and his lies — until Trump finally found a lie too big for them to enable."

Bruni then went after Ivanka Trump directly: "I’ve spent ample time in her temple of self-celebration, as have others. She and her husband, Jared Kushner, will always do what’s profitable for them, and if that occasionally intersects with the public interest, well, accidents happen." He then added, "We can think a word of thanks without uttering a syllable of praise."

NYT's Frank Bruni accused Ivanka Trump of laundering her reputation by testifying before Janurary 6 Committee.(AP Photo/John Locher)

The author also distinguished between "Republicans who took a chance on Trump at the start and got out fast, accepting that either he’d fooled them or they’d kidded themselves," and "Those who didn’t – including Pence, Mike Pompeo and others with presidential aspirations in 2024." 

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Bruni claimed that the latter "forfeited the moral high ground and can’t credibly reclaim it now."

He ended his piece with a brutal assessment of these loyalists, writing, "Nor can they pretend that they were anything other than transaction-minded actors in the most transactional administration I’ve observed. When they benefited from their proximity to Trump, they held their noses, bit their tongues and cuddled close." 

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Former members of the Trump administration have given testimony to the January 6 committee about their involvement in the former president's effort to contest the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Sure they may have "persuaded themselves that his flaws weren’t so different from any other vain leader’s, that politics is invariably messy and that their compromises were ‘normal’ ones," he mused, but rejected the thought, stating, "That’s awfully convenient. And utterly absurd."