Once a favorite at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Pence would likely have suffered an unenthusiastic audience or worse if he showed up to speak at the four-day event that ended Sunday, attendees told The Washington Times.
Late at night on the second Tuesday of January, Peter Meijer, a 33-year-old freshman congressman from West Michigan, paced the half-unpacked rooms of his new rental apartment in Washington, D.C., dreading the decision he would soon have to make.
Six days earlier, Meijer had pulled a smoke hood over his face and fled the U.S. House of Representatives as insurgents broke into the lower chamber. They were attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meijer had been on the job for all of three days. Once the Capitol was secured, he cast his vote to certify the election results. It was his first real act as a federal lawmaker—one he believed was perfunctory. Except that it wasn’t. The majority of his fellow House Republicans refused to certify the results, launching an assault on the legitimacy of American democracy.
