WASHINGTON – Seventeen months after crowd of Donald J. Trump supporters stormed Capitol with false claims of stolen election, House Democrats plan to use a historic set of investigative hearings starting this week to try to refocus voters ’attention on January 6th. with the goal of linking Republicans directly to an unprecedented plot to undermine democracy itself.
With Congress in check, Democrats plan to use moments made for television and a carefully choreographed display of revelations over six hearings to remind the public of the magnitude of Mr. Trump to cancel the election. and to persuade voters that the upcoming midterm elections are an opportunity to hold Republicans accountable.
It’s a tough battle at a time when polls show voter attention is focused elsewhere, including inflation, rising coronavirus cases and record gas prices. But Democrats argue that the hearings will give them a platform to present a broader case on why they deserve to stay in power.
“By the end of these hearings, voters will know how irresponsibly complicit Republicans were in casting their ballots and how far Republicans will go in power,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Republican Party. democratic campaign.
The select committee of inquiry into the attack, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, says it has approached its work soberly and apolitically and will present its findings as such. But it is clear that the hearings, five months before the midterm elections in which Democrats are preparing for big losses, carry a great deal of political risk.
The hope among Democrats is that the committee’s findings, gathered from 1,000 witnesses and more than 140,000 documents, will do most of the messaging work for them. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, has vowed that the hearings “will blow up the roof of the House.”
They have retained an experienced television executive to make sure this happens and have organized dozens of surveillance parties across the country in hopes of generating interest. But they face the onslaught of Republicans who are determined to deny, downplay and obscure the truth of what happened in their own messaging operation aimed at discrediting the investigation.
And Democrats are facing the reality that raw emotions after the attack have faded, even among voters who care about the facts, as attention has focused on an ongoing war in Ukraine, armed violence at home and deep pessimism about the state of the economy.
His job is to persuade voters that the Jan. 6 attack revealed bigger and more important issues at stake, including the Republican Party’s alignment with violent extremists and its decision to make adherence to the “great lie “that the 2020 elections were stolen proof of membership.
New York Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said on Twitter that the hearings “would fully expose the cult’s extreme effort to overthrow the U.S. government.”
An important part of the first hearing on Thursday evening will focus on the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members have been accused of seditious conspiracy in connection with the assault on the Capitol, according to two people familiar with the subject they spoke. on condition of anonymity.
It is expected to include the testimony of a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was part of the group during the assault on the building, and a Capitol police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured in an assault. which is said to have been provoked by the Proud Boys. .
The aim is to offer the public a deeper picture of what happened on January 6 than the images that were reproduced on television that day, and to reveal the extent to which the panel called “a coordinated and multi-step effort. to turn around “. the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the transfer of power ”.
Norman L. Eisen, who was hired by the Judiciary Committee to serve as special attorney during Trump’s first ouster, said Democrats had learned of some of his successes and failures during those hearings, but were still facing challenges.
“They have to have three things: the power of attracting the attention of new evidence, the spontaneous drama created by live witnesses, and the book’s oldest trick: telling a good story,” Mr. Eisen. “The risk is that there is a lot of anticipation and accumulation.”
Still, some Democratic officials believe the political benefit could be substantial, both to energize key party supporters and to appeal to independent voters who can turn against Republicans based on what they see and hear.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications, a progressive political consulting firm, has been conducting focus groups with voters. He said both Democratic “base voters” and “oscillating voters” were motivated by greater attention to the Capitol riot.
“Gener. 6 is very prominent and very negative for these likely mid-term voters, “Ms. Shenker-Osorio told activists in a recent call to promote audiences.
Democrats have met with live broadcasts on prime time and scheduled more than 90 viewing events in several states, including a “flagship” event at the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon in Washington, where a large screen will be installed. and attendees will receive free ice cream.
“It’s everything from a family reunion event in the living room to being organized in a union room to being housed in a large camp with a Jumbotron,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Progressive group Public. Citizens.
In an attempt to prevent the audience from becoming too dry and disconnected from the visceral reality of the attack, the committee plans to play a video of the attack on the Capitol and is considering issuing keynote clips from witnesses. ‘high profile, like the first. White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
While trying to offer the equivalent of Watergate audiences for the broadcast era, the committee has hired former ABC News chairman James Goldston, a move previously reported by Axios, to help fit audiences in six tight episodes, between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours.
Republican lawmakers have already begun pushing a counter-narrative to dismiss audiences as nothing more than a political theater at a time when Americans are more concerned about kitchen table issues such as rising gas prices and the scarcity of infant formula.
“Instead of focusing on $ 5 worth of gasoline, 6,000 illegal immigrants a day, a record of fentanyl deaths or violent criminals terrorizing American Democrats use taxpayers’ money on a TV producer for the political news commercial at prime time at the January 6 circus hearing, “said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. of Florida, he said on Twitter on Monday.
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third Republican who was the main advocate of Mr. During the first impeachment hearing, Trump will oversee the effort to discredit the committee’s findings, coordinating with California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and Rep. Jim. Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They plan to reserve Republican lawmakers on television to push a denied claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for the attack.
The committee has not yet finalized the full list of witnesses and is still discussing the possibility of a public witness with several high-profile Trump-era officials.
The court is waiting for Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting Attorney General, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting Deputy Attorney General, to respond to formal requests for a statement, according to two people reported on the matter.
Both Mr. Rosen as Mr. Donoghue has already told several congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to falsely say it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the results.
The committee is still in informal talks with Pat A. Cipollone, a former White House attorney, as well as Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who abruptly resigned on January 4, 2021, after to know that Mr. Trump had planned to fire him for not finding election fraud, according to those familiar with the talks.
Katie Benner contributed to the report.