4 hours ago The January 6 committee has the challenge of portraying the enormity of Trump’s betrayal to the public David Corn
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Each week yields new evidence that Trump was scheming in his final days to destroy American democracy. He improperly—possibly criminally—pressured state legislators, state election officials, and Justice Department officials to help him rig or undermine the vote count.
Last week, Trump issued a statement acknowledging he had leaned on Vice President Mike Pence to “overturn” the election—not just provide the states more time to review their vote tallies. (Trump’s argument that a vice president has the power to do this is both dumb and dangerous.
Certainly, the authors of the US Constitution did not intend to grant the vice president—who could be a presidential candidate—the unchecked power to decide an election.) But the enormity of Trump’s turpitude has not fully registered—in part because the Republicans have stuck to a this-parrot’s-not-dead stance and refused to admit reality.
But this shameless denialism can only work if enough of the public either goes along, declines to pay attention, or doesn’t give a damn. A president attempting a coup ought to define the political moment. A party that supports such a leader and his return to power ought to be scandalized and delegitimized. Failing the basic test of responsible governance—defending the Constitution—the GOP has proved itself unworthy of national stewardship. And yet the Republicans remain standing—and drool over the prospect of regaining control of Congress later this year.
snip// The attempted Trump coup, similarly, may be too profound a breach to be processed by our fractured political system. This presents a challenge and an opportunity to the House committee investigating January 6. Its members had considered holding extensive hearings last month, but they postponed them until April or May, as the committee reviews the massive amount of information it has gathered and pursues recalcitrant witnesses.
Up to now, the Trump coup tale has emerged in bits and pieces through multiple revelations in the media. These components do not appear in a linear fashion. There’s new information about Trump muscling the Justice Department. Something about fake electors forging documents. A phone call to Georgia state election officials. A draft order to declare martial law. And so on.
The story can be confusing and murky even to those of us who cover it steadily. Imagine how it comes across to citizens who only see the headlines intermittently. For them, it’s not drip, drip, drip; it’s more like a splatter.
Here’s where the House committee comes in. When it does get around to hearings, it will need to convey a clear and comprehensive story that shows anyone paying attention how Trump vigorously endeavored to sabotage the republic.
This won’t happen with a lot of speechifying. But committee members—or staffers—should guide the public through the various elements. With charts. With video. With timelines. Witnesses can be quite useful at hearings. A sharp grilling of a bad actor will go viral.
But narrative storytelling can be more important. The full tale of the Trump-Russia affair was never presented publicly (though the 966-page Senate Intelligence Committee report produced four years after the fact is a somewhat full and frightening chronology of what occurred).
As we learned with the Trump-Russia scandal, criminal investigations, such as special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, are imperfect vehicles for informing the citizenry.
That’s the job of Congress or an independent commission. Remember the 9/11 Commission and its impressive final report that provided a straightforward recounting of that nightmare and the governmental failures that preceded it.
The House January 6 committee ought to take its lead from the commission and embrace the effective telling of the 1/6 story as its top priority. The nation’s citizenry deserves a full account of Trump’s skullduggery, even if we can’t handle the trut
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