The Republican Party invariably positions itself as the protector of the “Rule of Law.” But with the former President suing everyone in sight to prevent his tax records and evidence of his command and control of the January 6th insurrection from coming into the hands of investigators, one has to wonder which law and under what conditions.

Over the past few days this constantly thinning PR veneer is getting replaced by a thicker and thicker layer of irony.

It has been reported in a wide variety of outlets that Republican operatives in contested—by Trump—states forged documents with alternate electors and sent those documents in to the National Archives to bolster their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Let’s be clear. Forgery is a crime. Here’s the textbook definition:

n. 1) the crime of creating a false document, altering a document, or writing a false signature for the illegal benefit of the person making the forgery. This includes improperly filling in a blank document, like an automobile purchase contract, over a buyer’s signature, with the terms different from those agreed. It does not include such innocent representation as a staff member autographing photos of politicians or movie stars. While similar to forgery, counterfeiting refers to the creation of phoney money, stock certificates or bonds which are negotiable for cash. 2) a document or signature falsely created or altered.

Whoever put these fake documents together, and there are evidentiary similarities, is now probably looking over their shoulders, a lot. Not only is this forgery but sedition. And then there’s the fake electors, all of them real people, who signed their names to these forged docs. That’s also a conspiracy. And since multiple states are involved and this was an attempt to overturn a national election… Well you get the picture. The originals of these documents are probably getting plenty of attention in the FBI labs.

Every story has heroes and fools. The heroes in this story are the very sharp librarians at the National Archives who spotted the clever fakes, noted their similarities and alerted appropriate officials in each of these states.

The fools? Well pretty much the only place where Republicans can call themselves the “Rule of Law” party is on FOX. It’s comedy on every other channel and these guys don’t do comedy well.