RUTHFULLY YOURS

For a glimpse of where the Democrats are headed as President Trump departs the White House, one could do worse than the podcast in which Secretary Hillary Clinton interviews Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Their podcast, called “You and Me Both,” is up on the Web. In it the two Democrats call for the establishment of something like the 9/11 Commission to go after those who mobbed the Capitol on January 6.

Mrs. Clinton jumps right in on this head. “Everyone knows what happened on January 6, when the United States Capitol was attached by a group of seditionist, insurrectionist traitors.” She eventually asks Mrs. Pelosi how she’s been holding up. The speaker says she’s “sad, I’m deeply sad” that the Capitol, “this symbol of democracy being overrun by people who have been incited by a person who’s not speaking truth.”

That’s when Mrs. Pelosi says “We have to take stock of what this is.” Mrs. Clinton calls it an “invasion.” Mrs. Pelosi says “they were out to harm people.” Then comes a digression about how President Trump used the abortion issue to get elected by dog-whistling to the — as Mrs. Pelosi put it — “Evangelicals, the Catholics, and all the rest.” The Speaker also mentions the “greed of those who want their tax cuts.”

Then Mrs. Clinton steers the conversation back to President Trump’s “other agendas.” Says Mrs. Clinton “What they all are, I don’t think we yet know. I hope, historically, we will find out, who[m] he’s beholden to, who pulls his strings. I would love to see his phone records, to see whether he was talking to Putin the day that the insurgents invaded our capital . . .” Then she asks Mrs. Pelos whether we need a “9/11 type” commission.

Mrs. Pelosi goes for the bait, hook, like and Joe McCarthy. “I do . . . ” she says. “I don’t know what Putin has on him politically, financially, or personally, but what happened last week was a gift to Putin. . . ”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Clinton says.

“. . . because Putin wants to undermine democracy in our country and throughout the world, and these people, unbeknownst to them maybe, are Putin puppets. They were doing Putin’s business when they did that, at the incitement of an insurrection of the president by the United States. So yes, we should have a 9/11 commission, and there’s strong support in the congress to do that.”

Then Mrs. Clinton asks Mrs. Pelosi about her call to General Milley at the Pentagon “to express your concern about this man starting a war, even, God forbid, using a nuclear weapon.” Mrs. Pelosi allowed that she was concerned that a man “who’s not allowed on Twitter” and has “access to nuclear codes.” She called the president “unhinged” and suggested the general understands the Constitution.

The question is: Does she? The Journal has already nailed the constitutional affront of the Speaker telephoning into the chain of command and trying to get the Joint Chiefs to disobey an order from a sitting chief commander. Listening to the Pelosi-Clinton podcast, though, we couldn’t help thinking of how the pair illuminates why the constitutional framers forbad the Congress from issuing a bill of attainder.

It’s not our purpose here to defend Mr. Trump — or the mob that, in one of the most shocking events in American history, forced a halt to Congress’ counting of the electoral vote. We also couldn’t help thinking, though, of how the Founders confined the power of Congress to define treason — which Mrs. Clinton laid to Mr. Trump — to levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies. That’s quite a charge to lay while publicly wishing you had a commission to get some evidence.