GOP senator pans Trump's efforts to whitewash his  insurrection: 'The nation saw it on television'

Republican efforts to whitewash the January 6th insurrection will be unsuccessful, one GOP senator argued on Saturday.

The prediction was reported in a New York Times article titled, "Already Distorting Jan. 6, G.O.P. Now Concocts Entire Counternarrative."

"In the hours and days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, rattled Republican lawmakers knew exactly who was to blame: Donald J. Trump. Loyal allies began turning on him. Top Republicans vowed to make a full break from his divisive tactics and dishonesties. Some even discussed removing him from office," Lisa Lerer and Nicholas Fandos reported.

"By spring, however, after nearly 200 congressional Republicans had voted to clear Mr. Trump during a second impeachment proceeding, the conservative fringes of the party had already begun to rewrite history, describing the Capitol riot as a peaceful protest and comparing the invading mob to a 'normal tourist visit,' as one congressman put it," the newspaper explained. "This past week, amid the emotional testimony of police officers at the first hearing of a House select committee, Republicans completed their journey through the looking-glass, spinning a new counternarrative of that deadly day. No longer content to absolve Mr. Trump, they concocted a version of events in which those accused of rioting were patriotic political prisoners and Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the violence."

But Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) doesn't believe the effort will be successful.

"I don't think anybody's going to be successful erasing what happened," said Cornyn. "Everybody saw it with their own eyes and the nation saw it on television."