Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney had two jobs on Thursday night as they began a series of television hearings in which they hope to show that Donald Trump incited a coup attempt against the U.S. government.
The Democrat and Republican leading Congress’s investigation into last year’s U.S. Capitol attack were intended to provide a compelling account of the events of January 6, 2021 and lay the groundwork for a possible prosecution of the United States Capitol. former president for his alleged role in them. .
In the first task, the experts said later, they succeeded. Using a tumultuous mix of videos, audio recordings and live testimonials, the committee showed how far-right groups planned and organized a riot with the intent of preventing Joe Biden from being certified as president.
They also showed that Trump had urged them from his Twitter channel and from a podium outside the White House, and then watched the violence on television, furious at advisers urging him to oust his supporters.
His second task, however, based on Thursday night’s evidence, is likely to be more difficult. Although Cheney argued that Trump had “summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and ignited the flame of this attack,” the committee has not yet shown that he colluded directly with the insurgents.
Thompson said after the hearing there would be more evidence of contact between the mutineers and Trump’s inner circle. Legal experts say this could be critical to any criminal case.
“What this committee has done in such a short time is unprecedented in history,” said Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor. “But what you also saw last night was the extent to which they have been hampered by the unwillingness of those around Trump to be frank and brave.”
However, Thursday’s hearing was not without some outspokenness on the part of the former president’s inner circle.
In a recorded testimony, William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, described the former president’s claims that the election had been rigged as “shit.” Jason Miller, one of Trump’s closest aides, acknowledged that the former president’s data experts told him he had lost. Even Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, said she “accepted” Barr’s findings.
The committee also presented the most complete and understandable account of what happened on January 6th.
With the help of James Goldston, a former president of ABC News, the committee created a creepy video of protesters marching on the Capitol, assaulting it, and raging inside.
The presentation used images taken by television crews, protesters and documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, and spliced them with audio recordings of agents working that day. “Declaring a riot,” an agent said at 2:39 p.m. “I need more support,” shouted another as he was flooded by the crowd. “We lost the line. We lost the line.”
And as the crowd shouted blasphemies and threw projectiles at the officers in front of them, the committee superimposed a now-famous recording of Trump talking about the attack later this year. “They were peaceful people,” he said. “Love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Members also showed images of contacts between the two far-right groups at the center of the violence: the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, the latter of whom moved in battle formation as they stormed the Capitol.
But despite the committee’s display, the question of possible ramifications for Trump is unclear. One of the most important members of the audience for Thursday night’s broadcast was Merrick Garland, the Attorney General appointed by Biden who has been pressured by progressives to file charges against Trump.
Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders, who were crucial figures in the uprising, have been charged with sedition, while Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two former Trump aides, have been charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to declare.
But accusing the former president would be more difficult, legally and politically, experts say.
Trump supporters are already claiming that the committee is conducting a witch hunt. His complaints will only be extended if the justice department charges the former president but does not prove to the courts that he colluded with the rioters or that he intended to enter the Capitol.
A big gap in the committee’s narrative was what Trump did during the 187 minutes between the start of the attack and he called on his supporters to “go home.”
Members gave some tempting clues, painting a picture of him “shouting” at advisers who tried to get him to issue a statement and even suggesting that he agreed with protesters calling for the execution of his vice president Mike Pence.
But so far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange.
The committee also showed clues that some close to Trump knew what would happen before it happened. “All hell will be delivered tomorrow,” Bannon said the day before. But members have yet to provide conclusive evidence that Trump himself directed the violence or intended it to occur.
Even if not prosecuted, Democrats hope these hearings could destroy their support in public and in Congress, just as Watergate’s television audiences did for Richard Nixon 50 years ago.
Recommended
“One of [the committee’s] was to make a difference at the polls, “said Norman Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador who advised the congressional committee that carried out Trump’s first ouster.” They had to show that the 2022 and 2024 elections they will be referendums on whether we want our country to go the way of democracy or trumpery, and they did. “
Part of the problem for committee members, however, is that, unlike Nixon, Trump has always done the things he is publicly criticized for. He once said, “I could be in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I wouldn’t lose a voter.”
In fact, the most compelling evidence of having organized the coup attempt was from his own Twitter channel. “Great protest in DC on January 6,” he wrote on December 19. “Be there, it will be wild!”
Some lawyers believe these hearings will differ from those at Watergate in that it was held in secret and not in secret. But they warn that even if there has been no cover-up, Trump could still face criminal charges if it can be shown that he deliberately incited or helped organize a riot.
Eisen said: “You can only shoot people in the middle of Fifth Avenue so many times before someone arrests you and puts you in jail.”