National Review
In a February 2021 appearance on CNN, Alyssa Farah, who had recently stepped down as a communications director for the Trump White House, said it was “important for members of Congress to step up and condemn” the January 6 riot at the Capitol. “And many have done that. I think Kevin McCarthy — you know, I give the leader credit — spoke out very plainly about the president’s role in it.” But when pressed on censuring President Trump, she demurred: “I think it’s an open question for Congress — I’m not going to play judge and jury on that,” she told the CNN host. “But I also think the country needs to move on from this moment. I don’t think we benefit from re-litigating, over and over, what happened that day. We need to be moving forward.” Three months later, the former Trump official appeared on MSNBC with a different message: “This isn’t going away. So to my friends, to the Kevin McCarthys of the world — this is not just something that you’re going to brush aside.” Five months after that, Farah, who had by then secured a spot as a CNN contributor and was auditioning for the nominal right-wing seat on The View, took an even more forceful line: “We are just acting like this is kind of normal, I feel like we’re just glossing over January 6 and moving on, and we absolutely shouldn’t. The committee is working on it, I hope they get to the bottom of it. But it’s devastating.” The change in tone and emphasis was part of a broader transformation for Farah, now Farah Griffin. The 33-year-old got her start in right-wing politics at World Net Daily — the blog run by her father, Joseph Farah, that is widely credited with popularizing the Barack Obama birther conspiracy.
