The news story headlined “Maine man pardoned for role in Jan. 6 riot speaks at Topsham church” published Jan. 25 in the Press Herald was marked, online, “Comments are not available on this story.” I feel that some comments are needed.

The story tells us that a convicted and pardoned Jan. 6 participant who “believes the 2020 election was stolen” was invited by the Cumberland, York, Lincoln and Sagadahoc County Republican committees to tell “A Maine Patriot Story.” No journalists were allowed to attend the event.

Let’s start with some facts. Late on the night of the election, and in the days immediately following, President Donald Trump declared that the election was stolen, and that there was massive amounts of fraud cheating him out of his win.

How could he have known this so quickly? It must have been glaringly obvious, for the facts of that much significant fraud to be unearthed and to reach him so quickly.

But in the days and weeks that followed, over 50 court filings were rejected. Judges issued sanctions against the lawyers for filing frivolous claims. Numerous state and federal officials, including his own attorney general, election security experts, his own close staff and untold others all told him there was no significant fraud. The Arizona GOP conducted a recount and found no discrepancies from the reported count. The Wisconsin State Senate GOP conducted an investigation, with the same outcome. Myriad other investigations have uncovered little more than occasional onesie-twosie cheatings.

The fraud allegations ranged from individual volunteer election workers multi-counting ballots, to local and state officials in multiple states fudging their counts, to computerized miscounts by the vote-counting computers. It must have been a massive conspiracy to span this full range of the election processing system.

Not a single whisper of this massive conspiracy has leaked out, and not a single individual has been prosecuted in any jurisdiction (liberal or conservative) for participation in this alleged conspiracy.

In several cases, these false fraud allegations have led to defamation claims filed in several courts, claims for reputational damages that have been adjudicated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the years that have followed, there have still been no credible reports of significant fraud in the 2020 election that would have determined the outcome.Where was the fraud?

It seems that the election was not stolen, and Jan. 6 was an illegal attempt to prevent the constitutional process of the transfer of power to the candidate chosen by the voting public.

Now here’s the problem.

These local GOP committees endorse the false statements that were deliberately used to mislead them. They fail to admit that they were lied to, that they were conned. Here in Maine, they gave a public speaking platform to someone who seems to believe those falsities and who participated in that day’s criminal (if pardoned) actions.

I would like to hear what evidence those GOP committees have of the occurrence of fraud. Please tell us what outcome-determinative election frauds occurred.

Lacking any such evidence, Jan. 6 was criminal and the pardoning of those criminal actors was a self-serving action by the beneficiary of the crimes. And it is shameful for any adult in a position of responsibility to give a platform for the continued propagation of the lies.

Go ahead, tell us about the frauds. I’m waiting.