How to Think About the January 6th Hearings
In its primetime meetings,
which start this week, the House committee is providing an active threat
assessment.
JUNE 8, 2022 5:30 AM
As you watch the House
January 6th Committee’s primetime hearings, keep the following top of mind: The
committee is not just examining the past. All the conditions that resulted in
the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, on Congress while it was discharging a
vital constitutional duty, and on more than 140 police officers remain clear
and present.
Donald Trump is still
the uncontested leader of the Republican party. His base still clings to the
idea the 2020 election was stolen and is nominating election-denying candidates
to powerful positions in key swing states. Members of extremist groups that led
the charge to the Capitol now have footholds in state and local GOP
organizations all over the country. And all the affiliated members of Trump’s
elite political, advocacy, and media class remain willing to assist Trump in
carrying out his desires.
So don’t settle into the
hearings thinking about them as a history lesson. They’re an active threat
assessment.
On Thursday the
committee will reveal what its team of former prosecutors, intelligence
officers, and national security experts has learned from interviewing more than
1,000 witnesses and analyzing tens of thousands of documents over the past ten
months.
If the committee did its
job right, it will be releasing a product more sweeping than any newsroom has
to date, in a highly digestible, readily available format designed for mass
consumption.
What should we expect?
On paper, the committee
was tasked with investigating the events that led up to Jan. 6th and caused the
violence to unfold that day, and with proposing legislative solutions to
mitigate future threats.
Practically, that means
delving into the story of the current state of the Republican party and how far
its various actors—from its most powerful leader to his boots on the
ground—were willing to go in order to overturn the election and keep Donald
Trump in power.
Here’s just a sample
platter of the stories the committee has to nail down:
· Trump’s lies.
· How the GOP and its many aligned advocacy
organizations fundraised off Trump’s meritless legal challenges to cancel
Democratic votes.
· The efforts to squeeze state officials to “find
the votes” in swing states Trump lost.
· The schemes inside the Department of Justice to
launch sham investigations into voter fraud.
· The wild ideas entertained inside the White
House to seize voting machines in order to “rerun” the election.
· The pressure campaign on Republican members of
Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to deny Electoral College votes for
Biden.
· How Trump summoned a real-life mob, bearing
tactical gear and weapons, that resorted to physical violence to stop Congress
from certifying Biden as president.
It’s a lot. Give it time
to sink in. And do not let the political junkies rush the process with their
relentless questions about whether or not the hearings will “work” in changing
public opinion.
Give the facts a chance
to speak for themselves.
Read the room on Thursday. And everything
happening outside the room, too.
Liz Cheney and Adam
Kinzinger, as is well known, are the only Republicans on the committee. House GOP
Leader Kevin McCarthy won’t be there. That’s because he’s busy leading the coverup. Maybe the other
House and Senate Republicans who voted for impeachment will show up sometime to
lend some moral support to Cheney and Kinzinger. They probably won’t. Why not,
though? They should, at least, be asked. Are we supposed to believe some petty
objection about how the committee was created is a reason to ignore the
momentous findings that are to be presented? Perhaps they’ll muster up the
courage to post some tweets. But it’s something to take note of, either way.
Outside of the political
elites, hundreds of people are being held accountable. The Department of
Justice has arrested more than 800 suspects in nearly
every state for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6th. Yet
the GOP, as a political institution, is defending all the methods and means
that prompted these alleged criminals to act. Why wouldn’t this happen all over
again?
The same lies,
conspiracies, and players are still in action.
Steve Bannon, for
example, fresh off his fraud pardon from Trump, is busy podcasting his
heart out while he awaits trial for contempt of Congress over his refusal to
testify to the committee. Meanwhile, Bannon, and all the various campaign
committees, lawyers, and advocacy groups that fundraised off “Stop the Steal”
lies, are sitting on their piles of money, poised for the next opportunity to
rake in more millions.
The leader of the Proud
Boys and four other members were indicted in federal court for seditious
conspiracy and other offenses on Monday. Last January, the leader of the Oath
Keepers and 10 of the group’s members were also indicted for seditious conspiracy
and additional charges; two have since pleaded guilty. And yet, today,
the Proud Boys have also taken over the Republican party in Miami-Dade County and an Oath Keeper who
was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6th is now the leader of Wyoming’s Republican party and
is working with Trump to unseat Liz Cheney.
MAGA activists are still
demanding audits, recounts, and decertification of the 2020 election. After
dragging Arizona officials through months of their fraudit shenanigans, they now
view the Cyber Ninja mess as a model to be replicated in other states. The base
eats it up. Going into the midterms, the list of election-denying candidates
who have already won the GOP nominations for office is startling.
Fox News won’t be
carrying the hearings live. Instead, its 8 p.m. hour this week will be
anchored, as usual, by Tucker Carlson, who recently produced the film Patriot
Purge—which suggested the attack on the Capitol was a “false flag”
operation and that conservatives are being unfairly persecuted due to the
fallout.
You get the point. To
the extent that conditions in the Republican ecosystem have changed since Jan.
6th, they’ve mostly gotten worse. Trump is out of office, but the
Republican political and media classes, which were initially shocked and
outraged by the insurrection, have made their peace with his anti-democratic
posture.
Enough with the depressing stuff. Here is what is
going to be compelling about the hearings:
Essentially, the
investigation is a GOP drama. That means all of the best witnesses will be
Republicans. The Jan. 6th Committee has video depositions of senior White House
aides and campaign officials. It should know how to use them. And there are
signals that video testimony from Ivanka Trump and
Jared Kushner will be deployed.
Liz Cheney and Adam
Kinzinger don’t have to lecture anyone about what happened. Trump’s supporters
and former employees will. Therein lies the hope.
The hearings will show
the violence and expose the schemes. An exposition of facts should also show
that Trump did not prevail because there were enough Republicans—just
barely—who resisted.
The hearings, after all
the evidence is laid out, should provide reason for more Republicans to go on
record rejecting Trump and his tactics. We’ll have plenty of time to have those
conversations over the summer and fall.
The material will be
available to make the case. And we will have to try. It may be our last chance
to dial down the threat.