General Overview of the Select Committee Hearings to Date

So, the January 6 Select Committee has held six hearings so far.  What do I have to say about them?  Many things, probably none very original, but I will start with an overview and then get to my impressions.

The hearings may be said to take up where the second impeachment trial left off.  The Democrats' presentation in the second impeachment trial was impressive, but incomplete.  There was a great deal the impeachment managers did not know.  This allowed for Michael Van Der Veen's defense that Congress had not adequately investigated the insurrection and therefore denied Trump due process.*  The Select Committee hearings are the fruits of a full investigation.  

So far the Committee has drive home the point that a lot of people who are not political junkies may have missed -- the January 6 insurrection was not an isolated incident. It was the culmination of a two-month attempt to overturn the election, mostly without the resort to violence.  The impeachment managers discussed Trump's earlier attempts to overturn the election through the states, the Justice Department, and the Vice President, but their overall focus was on January 6, so they may have given the earlier attempts short shrift.**

So how did they do?

I must say, I was decidedly underwhelmed by the initial hearing -- the one that set forth what to expect.  It played a few snippets of depositions, had some very brief and rehearsed-seeming live witness testimony, and mostly speeches.  I was somewhat more impressed with Bennie Thompson's opening speech about the importance of respecting election results and the orderly transition of power.  We all know how impressed George Washington's contemporaries were when he did not take advantage of his prestige and popularity to become a military dictator.  Thompson pointed out that in some ways Lincoln was even more impressive.  Faced with a civil war he could not seem to win and an opponent (in George McClellan) who wanted a negotiated settlement that allowed some southern states to secede and quite possibly the failure of the entire enterprise, Lincoln nonetheless refused to cancel the 1864 election and unconditionally pledged to abide by the results.***

Benjamin Ginsburg

The Committee started its second hearing (the first substantive one) in the right place -- by showing that there was no election fraud and that Trump knew it.  It started with the Fox commentator who first called Arizona for Biden and asked him to explain the "red mirage" -- a well-known phenomenon that makes the Republican appear to do much better at the outset than real results show.  That was still brief and still had a scripted, pre-rehearsed feel.  Things got more spontaneous when various officials -- all Republicans -- explained why various allegations of voter fraud were false.  It was not possible to refute every fraud allegation Trump made.  Bill Barr commented that Trump's fraud allegations were a sort of game of whack-a-mole -- no sooner did the Justice Department refute one allegation than he simply came up with another.  But the Committee did call on Republican officials to refute some of the better-known allegations.  I particularly liked Benjamin Ginsberg, a longstanding Republican elections lawyer, who explained why Donald Trump's lawsuits were not at all like normal elections lawsuits and had no merit.  I liked that detail.  All too many Trump opponents have been too quick to concede the legitimacy of suing to overturn the election. The Committee could probably have held a hearing on the lawsuits, but if its goal was to focus on actual illegality, then the decision is understandable.

I don't understand the timing of the third hearing, which addressed the pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results.  I would have started with the clear case that there was no fraud and that Trump knew it.  I would then move to his actions, possibly that lawsuits and definitely with pressure on state officials to overturn elections.  I would then have moved to pressure on Congress and the Justice Department and then to the Vice President.  This is both in chronological order and order of escalation. But although the timing was odd, the hearing was powerful. It was strengthened by having only two witnesses, thus allowing them to testify at greater length than the earlier hearings, and to show some life and sponteneity.****  John Eastman was the unwilling "star" of the hearing, which focused on his utterly insane theory that the Vice President (but not every Vice President, certainly not Al Gore in 2000 or Kamala Harris in 2024) could unilaterally decide which electors to accept and which to reject, and whether any of his actions were criminal. Certainly White House lawyer Eric Herschman thought Eastman's actions were illegal.  It was at this hearing that we had the satisfaction of hearing Hershman's recorded testimony, " I'm going to give you the best free legal advice you're ever getting in your life. Get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer. You're going to need it." And we got to see Eastman respond to a wide range of Committee questions by taking the fifth

Shaye Moss

The fourth hearing addressed pressure on state officials to change the outcome.  It was painful to watch because of all the hearings it has the most relevance for future elections and seems the most a relic of a more innocent time.  The election result held because Republican state officials unanimously held firm against Trump.  State Republicans are now in the process of replacing their state officials to ensure that such a thing can never happen again.  Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, was a faithful Trump supporter and a devout Christian. Much as he wanted Trump to win, his conscience and faith did not allow him to go against the law and his oath of office.  His anguish was apparent, but his resolve was unshakeable.  We also heard from Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State who supported Trump but stood firmly against any attempt to get him to change the vote and Gabriel Sterling, a high-ranking Georgia election official who during the Georgia recount angrily told President Trump to stop making false accusations of fraud because they were endangering election workers. 

These men are heroes.  Much as we may disagree with their politics, they put country ahead of party and principles above personalities.  All three discussed the threats and harassment their received from angry Trump supporters accusing them of fraud.  The witnesses also refuted some of the allegations of fraud in Arizona and Georgia.  If the Committee had wished to, presumably they could have stretched the matter out for six hearings, one for each of the contested states.  And the whole thing had a deep air of tragedy to it because it seems impossible for any Republican to behave that way anymore.  The Republicans of all swing states are in the process of purging their party of anyone who would ever certify a Democratic victory as legitimate, and forcing any who stay on to recant their views as a condition of remaining.  Indeed, even during the hearings, the Chairman commented that the Otero County Commission in New Mexico had refused to certify even a primary election.  The hearing ended with Shaye Moss, a rank-and-file election worker in Georgia who was falsely accused of falsifying the vote describing the threats and harassment she, her mother, and her grandmother received over the election.  Everyone at the election office was driven from their jobs by threats. If I could make Trump supporters watch just one of the hearings so far, it would be this one. More than any other hearing, it showed the full extent of violence and extremism among (an admitted minority of) Trump supporters.  And it shows that this is not just a dispute in the corridors of power.  Ordinary people are harmed by these false accusations.

The fifth hearing was in a reasonable order.  It moved from pressure on state election officials to pressure on the Justice Department to overturn the results.  Jeffrey Clark was to the fifth hearing what John Eastman was to the third -- the offstage villain who all the witnesses denounced.  Like Eastman, Clark took the fifth when called to testify in front of the Committee  The hearing detailed Clark's plan to have the Justice Department declare the election in Georgia fraudulent and ask the state legislature to appoint a new set of electors.  The plan was thwarted when all senior Justice Department officials threatened to resign en masse and leave the Department completely unworkable.  This hearing did not have the same air of tragedy as the previous one.  The Justice Department, after all, remains safely out of Trump's hands and will not be used to subvert the next election.  As for what happens next time a Republican is elected President -- that is still some distance off, while the subversion of state election machinery is underway today.

Cassidy Hutchinson

The sixth hearing, of course, had only one witness -- Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  This is the only hearing so far to feature only one witness to give an inside view of he White House on January 6.  The view was disturbing, to put it mildly.  Up until now I have been skeptical of people who treat communications between the White House and the Willard Hotel (where the rally organizers were staying) as sinister.  Of course the White House coordinated closely with the rally organizers.  That was never a secret.  The rally may have been scandalous and indecent, but there was nothing illegal about it.  I saw it as important to maintain a sharp distinction between the White House communicating with the rally organizers (publicly known and perfectly legal) and the White House communicating with the planners of the insurrection, a thing for which there was no evidence so far as I was aware.  Well, I still don't think Trump had any role in planning the insurrection, but Hutchinson raised at least some questions about some of his advisors.  Hutchinson seemed to imply that Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone at the Willard were talking to the Proud Boys, which at least implies a role in planning the insurrection.  Mark Meadows wanted to attend the meeting in person, but Hutchinson persuaded him to attend only by telephone.  Also among Hutchinson's testimony:

• The White House had definite warnings of the potential for violence on January 6.  (Up till then, there had been ample evidence of signs of potential violence, but no way of knowing whether these reached the White House).  Meadows seems to have been aware that there was a real risk of violence.
• Donald Trump knew some people in the crowd were armed (this is confirmed by contemporaneous police broadcasts) and wanted to allow them into his immediate vicinity.  Contrary to some people's interpretation, this did not necessarily mean he wanted to sic an armed crowd on Congress, only that we wanted to maximize the crowd on camera and was not afraid of their weapons.
• Trump's proposal to walk to the Capitol with the crowd was not empty posturing.  He had the day before to attend the certification.  (What he intended to do was not clear).  He also asked the Secret Service to drive him to the Capitol and became irate when they refused.  Hutchinson repeated a second-hand account that Trump tried to forcibly seize control of the car.  This has been disputed, but it is confirmed by multiple witnesses and contemporaneous texts that Trump wanted to go the the Capitol and was irate when the Secret Service told him it was not safe.
• Trump was well aware that crowds were calling to "Hang Mike Pence" when he sent out his tweet denouncing Pence.
• Trump seemed unable to fathom that there was anything wrong with hanging Mike Pence, or that he had lost the election.
• Throughout the whole ordeal, Mark Meadows sat on his couch, reading his phone and rejecting any attempt to talk sense to Trump.

The usual phrase for Trump's latest antics is "shocking but not surprising."  But I will have to say, Hutchinson's testimony was so shocking that I was actually surprised.

And another hearing is coming up tomorrow.

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*Along, of course, with his argument that Congress had unduly delayed and should have tried the impeachment before January 20, i.e., within 14 days.

*I went back and listened to the presentation, particularly Ted Lieu and Madeleine Dean to see just what the managers said. With regard to pressure on state officials, the Select Committee differed from the impeachment managers mostly in giving more detail, presenting witness testimony, and discussing possible crimes. With regard to the Justice Department and the Vice President, the impeachment managers knew about Jeffrey Clark's role and the threat of mass resignations, but John Eastman was not yet known. Lieu mentioned that Trump wanted to appoint special counsel to investigate the election, but not that he proposed to appoint one of his own election lawyers who had brought so many absurd lawsuits.  The impeachment managers also knew of Trump's private attempts to pressure Mike Pence to overturn the election, but not as many details as the Select Committee.

***Another example is Trump's hero, Andrew Jackson.  Jackson is currently unpopular among liberals as a slave holder and instigator of the Trail of Tears.  Nonetheless, he respected election results.  In 1824 the vote was split four ways.  Jackson won an electoral and popular plurality but not a majority.  Henry Clay, then in the House, appears to have swayed the House to choose John Quincy Adams in exchange for being named Adams' Secretary of State.  Jackson was understandable outraged, but nonetheless accepted the result, took part in the inauguration, and lived to fight another day -- by winning a solid majority in 1828.

****Although I personally thought one witness would have been better, for reasons I will get to later.