IT’LL CHANGE NOTHING
That's what is called irrational thinking.
The Advocacy Newsletter: Connecting.... the Dot
Volume 8 Number 391
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In the aftermath of what has become known as January 6th, there was an outcry for a Congressional investigation. Live or in the evening news, just about everyone that fateful day saw a crime being committed on January 6th and saw the “perp president” at the rally on the Ellipse ordering the act. What more do you need? If you’re given to irrational thinking, nothing is going to convince you of what you don’t want to see.
Flat denial by the president later became one of those, “are you going to believe your lying eyes or me?” The majority of Republican voters believe the canard that the presidential election was stolen in November 2020. So, they are unlikely to think that there was anything wrong with this– just some innocent citizens protesting the election in Washington by breaking some heads and breaking into the Capitol to harm lawmakers and the Vice President.
This January 6th select committee, as it has come to be known, is in keeping with similar investigations that have occurred at major tragedies in our recent history, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Watergate break-in, and most recently the September 11th attack. The primary aim of all these commissions was to understand why we were unprepared, to put in place preventive steps to assure that such a catastrophe didn’t happen again, and to determine who was responsible for the acts.
The January 6th Select Committee, CNN News
Interviewing one thousand witnesses and reviewing over ten thousand documents, as the committee has done in the last year, only shows and amplifies what people saw and heard on this fateful day. To the Trump believers’ minds, the election was stolen, and there was a mild protest on January 6th– these went together like apple pie and ice cream. If the House select committee’s intention is to convince those who believe the election was stolen that a major crime was committed on January 6th, they have an almost impossible task ahead of them. But that is what they are trying to do, as well as compile evidence that the Justice Department might use in a criminal trial of the president.
Bear in mind that the committee has no judicial powers in this effort, although if requested by the Justice Department, it will turn over its findings, and those findings can be used as evidence in a trial.
Shortly after January 6th, a bi-partisan Congressional panel was sought, as has been done in the past, but this was not to be, because the Republicans feared voter blowback. The Senate wouldn’t approve the committee, so it fell to the House, where the Democrats had a majority, to do the job, and they created the January 6th select committee.
When asked to submit names for the panel members the Republican House leadership nominated five: Jim Jordan of Ohio, Jim Banks of Indiana, as well as three others. Nancy Pelosi, the House Majority Leader, refused the first two because they were known and vocal supporters of president Trump and unlikely to be objective. Indeed, Jordan was known to have been involved in seeking to have the Vice President, Mike Pence, disallow some of the states’ presidency votes, as well as in the protest itself.
Upon her refusal, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, drew back all the Republican names and refused to have Republicans participate. Fortunately, there were two Republican House members who volunteered to be on the nine-person House committee: Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. So in the end there was bi-partisan representation on the committee, although it was light on Republicans. And Republicans continued to say this wasn’t a legitimate committee because of non-representation of the Senate and the absence of a full complement of Republicans, leaving out that they had created this situation.
Unlike other catastrophes, the Republicans are downplaying the whole event, saying it was no different than other protests like those of Black Lives Matter. This is untrue: our Capitol was breached, lives were lost, police were injured, and the very lives of Congresspeople and the Vice President were threatened. It was the worst thing that has happened to the Capitol since the capture by the British during the War of 1812. Their disavowal of January 6th is like saying Pearl Harbor was never bombed or September 11th was a hoax.
Let’s face it, the Democrats are no saints. They know full well that the stakes are high, and the future of the Republican Party for years could be on the line here. It is a given that the Republicans weren’t about to take a mea culpa on this one. So the Dems are anxious to set out the whole story to the American people, going beyond what they saw and heard around December 6th and in previous hearings. This includes the actions of the president, how he sought in many ways to forestall the installation of Joe Biden, and how eager followers plotted the invasion of the Capitol and the overturn of our government.
Republicans, in the meanwhile, are downplaying the whole thing like it is a non-event. Their stalwart backer Fox News is chipping in by not covering the hearings on its basic cable channel. Hopefully, most believers won’t even watch, but if they want to they’re going to have to go to one of the regular channels or, heaven help them, CNN or MSNBC.
Here are samples of what they would have seen that first day, June 9th, describing what happened on January 6th and some of the behind-the-scenes happenings:
· The mob took its cues directly from Trump, who criticized Pence for announcing he would not overturn the results of the election, while presiding over the joint session of Congress. Then the crowd started to chant “hang Mike Pence,” and there were shots of photos of makeshift nooses and gallows. There is also a clip of rioters shouting “Nancy, Nancy,” around the House Speaker’s office, as they searched for her.
· Witnesses testified that the president did nothing to stop the riot and didn’t want it to stop. One person who was in the White house that afternoon said that Trump was aware of the chants to hang Pence and seemed to approve them.
· The role of the rightwing extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers was highlighted. They were among the first to breach the building and had engaged in planning the riot, which dispels the Republican claims that the attack was spontaneous. Testimony from a Proud Boys leader showed that the Trump comment at a presidential debate with Joe Biden that the group should “stand back and stand by” was a call to action for January 6th.
· A Capitol police officer gave gripping testimony about the vicious attack and subsequent public scrutiny endured after the attack.
· Video clips were shown of the president’s staff and adult family members who were there or spoke to the president that day and told him that the election wasn’t stolen, and that they didn’t believe his claims that it was.
· Evidence was given that it was Vice President Pence who finally ordered the National Guard to the rescue at the Capitol, but he told the chairman of the joint chiefs to say it was the president.
That’s only the first night. Surprisingly, commentators responded like theater critics, feeling the presentation lacked the punch of the Watergate hearings and would seem to be like preaching to the choir. Others felt that it presented stark evidence of the president’s criminal actions, especially the telling comments by former Attorney General Barr that he had pointedly told the president that he had legally lost the election. This would negate the president’s claim that he believed the election was stolen.
Still, by contrast, at the Watergate hearings many more millions viewed each of the proceedings, with a total of 83 percent saying they had seen one or more hearings, rather than the 20 million the first night of the January 6th select committee. Twenty million is fine for a regular TV program, but not a big deal considering that it was aired everywhere, and its import to the American people. You can bet that this time most viewers were Democrats. The Watergate hearings were watched by a wide range of citizens, and as they unfolded, more people became convinced that Nixon had to go.
The June 9 hearing was the first of several planned public hearings that will occur throughout the month. In two subsequent meetings the committee showed how Trump incited the crowd with the lie of a stolen election and sought to have Vice President Pence negate the electoral vote at the Senate and threatened his life. At this time, the committee has only scheduled the first three hearings, with more to come.
Despite the absence of Fox, all the usual players were there this time, the networks and other cable news. The audience for the presentations after the first is becoming less robust. So, the committee will probably fall flat on creating a lot of new believers. That isn’t to say that just because the hearings aren’t great viewing doesn’t mean that they don’t have value, but it certainly puts a damper on it in the court of public appeal.
Certainly, all this material should be fodder for work on how to protect us in case of an attempted breach of the Capitol in the future. Steps and funding have already been taken by the Congress to better ensure safety at the Capitol. Many of the perpetrators of the Capitol break-in have been identified, some tried and convicted, many pled guilty, and still others will be forthcoming.
What happens to ex-president Trump is something else. Members of the committee have said that there is ample evidence that he egged on and persuaded the protesters to commit the Capitol break-in, and as commander-in-chief he did nothing to stop it. As such he is guilty of conspiring for an insurrection, of a failure to act as commander-in-chief, and of not seeking to call out the troops while the break-in was occurring, in keeping with our Constitution.
Putting Trump on trial based on the committee report and other evidence that the Justice Department has probably gathered is another matter. The Justice Department has been examining January 6th from three vantages: charging the people who attacked the Capitol: piecing together larger conspiracies, including sedition; and identifying possible crimes that took place before the assault.
It’s completely up to attorney general Merrick Garland to make the call on deciding whether or not to do this. He is known to be a very capable but cautious man. He has brought some charges against Trump break-in activists but has been slow and deliberate in the process. While, based on the committee hearing, it seems like it would be an easy conviction, proving presidential guilt would be a much harder matter in a court of law. So it is understandable that Mr. Garland moves with deliberation as this would be a very wrenching matter for the whole country if a former president was tried as a criminal.
No president in the history of our country has ever been tried as a criminal. In the end it will probably get down to that old bugaboo–proving intent. Rest assured, the president’s lawyer would claim that he meant no harm. And it would be hard, if impossible, to find someone who would say that the president said he intended to invade the Capitol, overthrow the government, and harm Democratic leaders.
If Trump thought these thoughts, he kept them to himself. After all, he has been dodging the law for over 40 years and is a pro at this. But he sure was heard to tell his audience at the Ellipse to follow him to the Capitol on January 6th. His lawyer would say it was for a peaceful purpose. And if he chose to believe the fix was in on the election, despite being told the contrary by his daughter Ivanka and trusted attorney general William Barr, should he be let off as lacking intent? Did he irrationally think not to believe them? The prosecutor, if it gets to that, will say that his every intent was indicated by his behavior, and the jury must find this to be so and find him guilty on the charges.
But that will wait for the present attorney general, Merrick Garland, to decide whether to seek an indictment of the president. This should be forthcoming in weeks, if not days. Meanwhile, the hearings will take up the month of June with only warm weather tedium and no converts in sight.
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"All Americans should keep in mind this fact, on the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain president of the United States."
--Liz Cheney
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