Donald Trump’s cuckoo coup

Donald Trump spent the final weeks before the January 6 attack on the Capitol careening recklessly between conspiracy theories and rebuffing anyone who tried to intervene.

In Thursday’s hearing of the January 6 Select Committee, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) described Trump’s activities as “essentially a political coup.” And it almost was, but the effort the committee laid out seemed drawn out of some bizarre black comedy, with each detail more farcical than the last.

The hearing room occasionally broke out in laughter at the ineffectual attempts of Jeffrey Clark, a Justice...