INSURRECTION: House panel hearings a historic opportunity, challenge
INSURRECTION: House panel hearings a historic opportunity, challenge
Seeking truth is the goal; convincing skeptics doubtful
High risk presentation could be dramatic moment – or snoozefest
The upcoming hearings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol have the potential to be a major pivot point in American history.
But they are also a high-risk gamble.
The polity is deeply polarized with extreme narratives so firmly entrenched on both ends of the political spectrum that possibly no one is available to be convinced.
If that is true, no amount of slick production values and high drama will allow the House Select Committee to achieve its goal: To provide an authoritative historical record of the events leading up to and surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
No less than the future of the remarkable US experiment in democracy is at stake. If the committee fails, the forces of division and disaster will prevail.
Truth will be buried in an avalanche of lies from which no recovery will be possible. Americans of good faith and every political persuasion should hope it succeeds.
The stage was set for the first of six hearings in a one-paragraph statement from the committee on June 3.
“[The Committee will] present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the statement said.
Additional details regarding witnesses will be released in the coming days. The panel has so far not announced who they will be. It has interviewed over 900 individuals in its 10-month investigation and has received over 100,000 documents.
The official remit of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol is not complicated, even if its language is somewhat dense.
Its main purpose is to “investigate and report the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power …”
It also aims to “examine and evaluate evidence developed by relevant federal, state, and local governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding” the attack.
That does not sound really exciting, but it was drafted a long time ago. The only words that really jump out from this official, bureaucratic jargon are those describing the events as a “domestic terrorist attack.” (emphasis added)
This phrase has not yet been widely used to describe the events of January 6, but perhaps will be after the hearings present an official narrative.
The committee is not charged with establishing if any crimes were committed, but there has been some contact with the Department of Justice that is investigating over 800 criminal cases stemming from the same events.
A somewhat more detailed preview was provided June 2 on MSNBC by someone with unique qualifications.
Dan Goldman was Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York who served as chief House counsel during the first impeachment inquiry into former President Donald Trump.
Goldman described the panel’s first hearing as similar to the beginning of a criminal trial, when the prosecution presents its case in broad outline, with details to be filled in later by supporting evidence.
“This is an opening statement summarizing their findings of the investigation to date and what they expect the evidence to show,” Goldman said.
“It's the first hearing, it's the biggest one, it will get the most attention. So they will put the most serious and sensational evidence that they have found in this first hearing.”
Goldman added that the panel has done an “exhaustive, aggressive, comprehensive investigation, and I think they've been chomping at the bit to show what they found.”
Like almost everyone else, Goldman did not have specific knowledge of what the committee is planning, but suggested the four subsequent day-time hearings would be when it presents the bulk of its evidence in detail – including appearances by cooperating witnesses.
The committee has in fact been reticent to share much of its vast accumulation of evidence, and has issued very few press releases during its year-long existence.
But that did not stop enterprising journalists from unearthing some tantalizing details about what is likely to be presented.
In fact, it is not difficult to speculate, based on public reporting, that the key evidence will come from a now-reluctant witness: former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Meadows began as a cooperating witness, and during this period turned over thousands of text messages he received and sent related to the January 6 events.
Then, he changed his mind and refused further cooperation. On Dec. 15, the House voted to refer his case to the Department of Justice for possible criminal contempt charges. The DOJ said on June 3 that he will not be charged.
But there can be little doubt that the text messages he turned over will play a starring role in the proceedings.
We all got a preview of Meadows’ communications on April 25 when CNN published some of the messages in the article Mark Meadows' 2,319 text messages reveal Trump's inner circle communications before and after January 6.
CNN reported on and published over 2,000 text messages that Meadows sent and received between Election Day in 2020 and the inauguration on January 20, 2021 of President Joe Biden.
“The vast trove of texts offers the most revealing picture to date of how Trump's inner circle, supporters and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the election results and then reacted to the violence that effort unleashed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the report said.
A sampling of the messages was published in a separate article and reads like a Who’s Who of members of Trump’s inner circle – starting with members of his family and including many top officials in government and the Republican Party.
They begin just two days after the 2020 presidential election, on Nov. 5:
Ivanka Trump to Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, Mark Meadows, Jason Miller, Dan Scavino and Bill Stepien:
“You are all WARRIORS of epic proportions! Keep the faith and the fight!”
There are many more that are mundane and relatively unremarkable, but – like this one from the former president’s daughter – almost all include names of high profile individuals that are easily recognizable.
A month later, on Dec. 20 the now-famous owner of My Pillow:
Mike Lindell to Mark Meadows:
“We have to get the machines and everything we already have proves the President won by millions of votes! I have read and not validated yet that you and others talked him out of seizing them... If true .. I pray it is part of a bigger plan.”
This turned out to be a conspiracy theory that voting machines in various states had been “compromised” in some way to switch votes from Trump to Biden. It has been thoroughly debunked.
The next day, Dec. 21 marks the first appearance of a Congressman who would later appear at the Jan. 6 rally and play a crucial role in the event:
Rep. Mo Brooks to Mark Meadows
“I suggest message should be: 1. Progress is being made. 2. More are joining our fight. 3. We can't allow voter fraud & election theft occur (sic) if we are going to be a republic. Your choice. Let me know.”
It’s quite clear from this that Brooks was already playing a major behind-the-scenes role in planning something … we did not know exactly what it was, but there’s been plenty of speculation.
The messages sent and received by Meadows on January 6, however are perhaps the most revealing.
Senders and recipients include many well known individuals: Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene are among them.
During the riot, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. made his feelings known: “He's got to condem this shit. Asap. The captiol police tweet is not enough,” Trump Jr. wrote.
Rep. William Timmons sent something similar to Meadows:
“The president needs to stop this ASAP,” Timmons wrote.
“We are doing it,” Meadows replied.
Former President Trump’s first White House Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus: “TELL THEM TO GO HOME.”
One can spend hours reading the texts but there are four main takeaways that are inescapable:
Planning for various ways to contest the 2020 election began even before the results were officially tallied – the day after the vote!
Hundreds of people, many with senior official positions in the White House or Congress were involved.
Before January 6, many alternative plans were floated but most discarded; some were plainly ridiculous.
The tone of the messages sent on the day of the insurrection was increasingly desperate, but almost all acknowledged in some way that the only person with the power to stop the violence was the president himself.
The extensive trove of text messages themselves paint a detailed picture of the events leading up to the insurrection, and what happened during and after the riot. There is no doubt they will play a starring role in the proceedings.
While the broad outlines of the hearings are now known, a few details have emerged from different comments the panel Chairman Bennie Thompson has made during the past few months.
Thompson has promised the panel will create a narrative about the events.
“We’ll tell the story about what happened. We will use a combination of witnesses, exhibits, things that we have — to the tens of thousands of exhibits we’ve [reviewed] and looked at as well as the hundreds of witnesses we deposed or just talked to in general,” he said in May.
The final witness list could reportedly include a handful of former officials from the Department of Justice whom Trump allegedly pressured for help in his failed bid to overturn the 2020 election. We might even see cameo appearances, via video clip, of previously recorded testimony by marquee players such as Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner.
A Select Committee member will lead each of the hearings, but top investigative lawyers who are intimately familiar with the material will primarily conduct the questioning of witnesses to keep testimony tightly on track.
The hearings are definitely going to be a grand production. Undoubtedly, they will be a significant contribution to the historical record.
For that reason alone they are a worthwhile endeavor.
But the key question remains: will they change any minds? We won’t know the answer to that for quite some time.
Sorry. My fingers got in the way before I finished
Remembering the beautifully prepared stories during the second impeachment effort makes me think this will be similar: stories interspersed with videos to prove it (maybe this time with live people to testify). And, as we all remember, it didn’t work. What does it take to change minds that are already made up? I am pessimistic, but hopeful that some amount of the rs will result in some jail time for perpetrato