Pinning the Tail on the Donald
Terry H. Schwadron
June 10, 2022
In opening what it sees as a half-dozen historically important public hearings, the Jan. 6 Select Congressional Committee pinned the tail on the Donald right from the start.
In the first minutes, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) called it a coup attempt orchestrated by Trump.
But you’ll have to stick around to watch the series — or wait for the book — to get to what we want to see as evidence.
As you could see for yourself everywhere but Fox News, or could read about in every media outlet, including Fox News.com, we got a smorgasbord of tantalizing video clips and assertions to underscore that the insurrection riot that day was no accident. It was an important, violent attack on our most basic tenet of democracy, and it was planned.
With this introductory portion almost all reflecting previously reported events retold in suitably compelling fashion, what we saw clearly put Donald Trump in the center of a web of scheming, summoning, and pointing his Trump-clad mob towards the Capitol, even over objection of his own team. And then Trump did little to stop the violence, the hearing asserted.
In these accounts, the bad deeds of the day, the “carnage” of a “war zone,” were led by militia groups prepared for violence in Trump’s behalf who started towards the target earlier than was widely known, and the surprise was only the repeated ties talked about between militias and the Trump inner circle.
It all underscored the image of Trump as a loose cannon as a president fixated on denying realities in pursuit of proclaiming himself anything but a loser to remain in the White House despite election results. The hints of irrationality were broad and frequent, including from his own daughter Ivanka.
There were intriguing suggestions of more to come. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee vice chair, said the panel had found evidence in testimony from former White House officials that multiple House Republicans, including Rep, Scott Perry (R-Pa,) had sought presidential pardons after the Jan. 6 riot for their efforts to challenge and overturn the 2020 election.
Why would anyone seek blanket pardons in Trump’s last days unless believing that he or she had broken federal law? Perry’s spokesman said Perry never sought a pardon.
Indeed, the two big questions still hang in the air, unaddressed: Will the Justice Department turn this plotting evidence into criminal charges, and will Congress take any action to forego a replay in the next election?
A Buffet of Charges
Although Cheney and Thompson kept the talk about saving democracy and peaceful transfer of power, the hearing did seem to exude an inescapable political overtone by focusing right off the bat on Trump.
Their job was to find root causes for Jan. 6, and this opening hearing jumped right to the overall conclusion without outlining issues in securing the Capitol and anticipating problems, or failed communications among agencies or even describing the full role of members in any aide and comfort given to rioters.
On Fox, commentators spent their airtime undercutting the legitimacy of the committee makeup or on asserting the importance of issues that the opening hearing did not raise — including remarks by Trump a couple of days earlier asking about National Guard deployment to protect his rallygoers rather than the Capitol.
Most Republicans tried to ignore or distance themselves. Trump himself called into Sean Hannity’s show to disparage an investigation built on partisanship rather than on his own baseless claims about a stolen election. There were plenty of talking heads raising whether clips were taken “out of context.”
It would be easy to conclude that the MAGA mob that heeded Trump’s call to come to Washington on Jan. 6 was following a deluded leader into lawlessness and violence. It would also be easy to conclude that without an attempt at accountability, there is an excellent chance that Jan. 6 was a rehearsal for the coup to come, this time supported by localized efforts around the country to put MAGA sympathizers in charge of elections and efforts by Republican-majority state legislatures to alter voting and counting rules.
A Mixed Plate
The aftermath seems mixed:
As a presentation, this was an effective presentation with some emotional or informative moments, and a grateful omission of endless five-minute questioning by speechmaking congressmen.
As examination of case itself, this was an introduction, with the substance still to come. With as much video and documents as the committee has collected, the job at hand was to simplify the story for the public rather than to inundate us with the needed detail.
As a legal case, this was not a trial, but certainly would align with Justice Department efforts already underway involving militia members with the prospects of prosecution against a former president unclear. Meanwhile, criminal charges continue to be filed against rioters, militias, and just this week, a leading Republican candidate for governor in Michigan as a participant in damage at the Capitol. But we don’t know whether Justice, which is reported focused on the specific plots about alternate electoral college slates, will act and when.
As politics, whether immediate or long-term, this hearing is unlikely to have changed many minds about what happened that day, whom to blame or whether Trump should be eligible to run again for president. Among some surveyed voters, the events of Jan. 6 fall substantially behind concern about today’s gasoline prices as an issue for public concern.
As a chance for Congress to look at its own behaviors, we have no idea yet. Clearly, testimony, depositions and emails shared with the panel show various levels of involvement by particular Republican members in efforts to throw out electoral votes for Joe Biden in favor of alternate Trump slates. A bipartisan bill by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to address ambiguities about the vice-presidential role in certifying elections is said to be proceeding apace in Senate negotiations.
It is remarkable how upsetting the presentation is still proving to be.
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