Hutchinson’s testimony was undoubtedly damaging to Trump, painting him as furious and out of control on the day of the riot. Take the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows who accompanied the former president and many of his top aides on January 6. The flaw in this arrangement was on display over the past two weeks. No transcripts have been made available to the public, and so the committee releases only the information that appears to bolster its narrative while ignoring the rest, safe in the assumption that criticism will mostly be confined to the Right-wing press. While the committee has deposed hundreds of witnesses, their testimony has been released only in scripted appearances before the panel, carefully curated video snippets, and leaks to friendly media. I mean the second part literally: the committee recruited a television executive, former ABC News President James Goldston, to craft the hearings into a “disciplined, captivating summer series” built around a “taut, colourful narrative with a prosecutor’s precision and a cinematographer’s flair”, according to Axios’s Mike Allen. The majority of House Republicans boycotted the committee - unwisely - when Pelosi refused to seat two of their nominees on the grounds that both had objected to the certification of the 2020 election (something they have in common with Democratic committee member Jamie Raskin, who objected to certification in 2016.)Ībsent any opposition, the committee has been an odd mix of Congressional hearing and partisan political documentary. This committee does have two Republicans, but both were selected by Nancy Pelosi for their anti-Trump bona fides.
Normally, a House select panel would include members of the minority party who could ask questions, cross-examine witnesses, and generally challenge the assertions of the majority. The committee’s main problem is that it is an entirely one-sided affair, which means that it is having trouble convincing anyone who is not already convinced. Suggested reading Ideology has poisoned the West
(For what it’s worth, 61% of voters would prefer that Trump not run again in 2024.) Partisan splits on all of these questions are what you’d expect, with most of the margin accounted for by independents. 6 is very much salient and highly negative.”Īnd for everyone else? According to a recent Harvard/Harris poll, while narrow majorities blame Trump for the Capitol riot, narrow majorities also regard the hearings as “partisan” and “biased”, 56% believe the Capitol riot was a “protest that turned violent” (versus 44% who think it was an “armed insurrection”), 63% believe Congress should be investigating other issues rather than focusing on January 6, and 67% believe the hearings are “further dividing the country”. As the New York Times reported shortly before the hearings started, “Democrats argue the hearings will give them a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.” The article quoted a political consultant who had run focus groups on Democratic “base surge voters” and “swing voters” and found that for both groups, “Jan. Indeed, the committee’s purpose is probably less to fish for criminal charges than to put Trump and the events of January 6 back at the centre of the national conversation at a time when the Democrats are facing political headwinds.
Trump never directly ordered anyone to storm the Capitol, so he is likely in the clear, legally if not morally.