“The U.S. Congress's probe of the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat enters a new phase this week with hearings meant to refocus attention on the violence and those who planned it.” Reuters
Here’s our previous coverage of the Jan. 6 committee. The Flip Side
The left supports the committee, and argues that it’s important to make people aware of the full campaign to overturn the 2020 election.
"For the House select committee’s Jan. 6 hearings slated to start Thursday evening to have lasting impact on the American people and lay the groundwork for reforms and safeguards to our democratic process, the committee must stick as closely as possible to journalism’s five Ws and one H: Tell the public the who, what, when, where, why and how of the attack on the U.S. Capitol…
“We might think we know this story — who hasn’t seen images of the assaults on Capitol and D.C. police, the rampage inside the building, the Senate Chamber’s desecration? But how did the mob get rolling? Was it planned? Was it spontaneous? Was there more to the attack? And, finally, what was the full, unvarnished role of Donald Trump in an indisputable and ghastly assault on American democracy? And what steps need to be taken to prevent such a dastardly deed from ever happening again? If it does that, the House select committee will not only have achieved its mission but have earned the nation’s gratitude as well.”
Colbert I. King, Washington Post
"The assault on Congress that afternoon represented a desperate and violent attempt to prevent the transfer of power after a months-long campaign to do so had failed…
“The campaign was bracing in its scope: using government resources to promote the president’s reelection; soliciting state and local officials to commit election fraud; pressuring the vice president to delay or block the counting of electoral votes; enlisting the Justice Department to sanction the overturning of election results; refusing to officially green-light the operational transition of administrations; devising plans to employ the military to seize ballots and voting machines; strategizing with members of Congress to assemble fake slates of electors; and then inciting a lethal riot at the eleventh hour…
“It will be the task of the select committee to pull together the threads of grave misconduct it has exhaustively investigated into a coherent story with an already evident truth at its heart: Despite having lost the election, the former president and his associates embarked on a massive and galling expedition to maintain the presidency at any cost.”
Grant Tudor, The Atlantic
“There’s much that can be done to fix [these] problems, as a diverse group of prominent legal scholars, convened by the American Law Institute and including former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer and former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn, has suggested. To begin with, Congress can revise the Electoral Count Act to create a more robust role for federal courts in making sure that states follow their own rules for picking the winner of their electoral college votes…
“The Electoral Count Act says a challenge to electors can proceed if one member from each chamber (House and Senate) agrees. That threshold should be raised significantly…
“Congress should also mandate that voting machines produce paper ballots that could be recounted in the event of an election dispute, provide adequate funding for fair elections, increase protection of election workers and officials against harassment and violence, and stiffen criminal penalties for interfering with official election proceedings… By showing precisely what went wrong in 2020, and which safeguards held, the committee hearings can make clear to the public the need for new legislation."
Richard L. Hasen, Washington Post
The right is critical of the committee, and argues that the hearings will be a partisan political stunt.
The right is critical of the committee, and argues that the hearings will be a partisan political stunt.
“Remember that congressional committees, except for the Jan. 6 committee, are made up of members chosen by the leader of the majority, in this case, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the leader of the minority, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Last July, when Pelosi created the committee, McCarthy nominated five GOP members: Reps. Jim Banks, Jim Jordan, Kelly Armstrong, Rodney Davis, and Troy Nehls. In an unprecedented move, Pelosi vetoed Banks and Jordan… It was a move that, in the words of Politico, ‘sent shock waves through the House.’…
“What would Thursday night's premiere be like, if there were Republican-appointed Republicans on the committee? The only certain answer is that, unlike now, there would be a difference in perspectives among the members. There would be members to challenge the assertions of other members, who could then respond. There would be differences of emphasis. There would be, in short, the kind of interactions that congressional committees are supposed to have.”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) writes, “Millions of Americans watched the violence [on 1/6] unfold on television, and there’s been breathless news coverage in the months since. The events of Jan. 6, 2021 have been investigated by Senate committees, federal inspectors general, and a phalanx of Washington reporters. Prosecutions are still ongoing in open court. With so much information already public about Jan. 6, what is the real purpose of these prime-time hearings?…
“Behind the committee’s storytelling, there’s a more sinister aim: convincing Americans that conservatives are to blame for the events of that day. In fact, Democrats have already done just that—asserting last year that President Trump was ‘unmistakably responsible’ for the violence and even calling Republicans ‘traitors’ for their Electoral College objections. Never mind the fact that Democrats made the very same objections to every Republican president in this century, or that Democrats spent most of 2020 condoning left-wing violent riots across the country…
“Make no mistake, the violence of Jan. 6 was as wrong as wrong can be. But Americans watching the hearings should have no illusions about the Democrats’ true objectives.”
Jim Jordan, The Federalist
“Here’s Axios’s Mike Allen with what he breathlessly terms a ‘scoop’: ‘I’m told Goldston is busily producing Thursday’s 8 p.m. ET hearing as if it were a blockbuster investigative special.’ Oh? James Goldston, former ABC News president and ‘a master documentary storyteller,’ according to Allen, is ‘a renowned former network-news executive’ who is working for the Democrats to ‘hone a mountain of explosive material into a captivating multimedia presentation for a prime-time hearing Thursday.’…
“In case you were wondering whether what the Democrats are offering tomorrow is merely a television program airing for partisan purposes — the proper name for these things is an infomercial — Axios has made the answer abundantly clear… If Democrats were actually serious about the events of 1/6/21, they would fix the genuinely disturbing underlying issue, which is the ambiguity of the Electoral Count Act. Instead of doing their job and legislating a fix to protect future elections, though, the politicians are simply leaning on the propagandists to protect their own jobs.”
Kyle Smith, National Review