All the complaints from critics about the January 6 select committee are inconsequential, unsupported, and undeserving of attention. With one exception. This one:
The committee is hoarding information that it should be making public, starting now.
The committee’s chair and vice-chair did a superlative and historic job of setting up their findings during their first hearing on Thursday night: They will prove that the violent, January 6 insurrection was the proud creation of a far-reaching seditious conspiracy headed by Donald Trump and intended to steal a free and fair election.
But they only released a few clips from what appear to be jaw-dropping depositions. They only released some of the new, spellbinding video they have.
They appear to be planning to release only bits and pieces over six further hearings in June, and only then – if then – spilling the rest.
This is what committee member Adam Schiff told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow after Thursday’s hearing:
The real challenge for our committee, frankly is, how do we choose what is most important to share with the public? And I think that what we will try to do is make available in these hearings as much as we can, and then provide in online resources for others, a wealth of other material for you and other members of the press, and public, to scrutinize.
But why not now?
Why not at least answer direct questions, if you know the answer?
Schiff kept on ducking questions, saying “I can’t go into too many specifics” and “I’m not at this point authorized to go into that evidence.” Who’s gagging him and why?
Unlike the Watergate hearings, Thursday night prime-time session was not genuinely investigative in nature; it was just staged to appear that way. The committee has apparently mapped out the next six hearings in some detail already.
I get they want to narrate the story, and tell it in some reasonable order, to maximize the impression it makes on the American people. But they can still do that, even if they open up their files now. Especially if the rest of the hearings won’t be in prime time, synchronous viewing will no longer be a significant factor.
Starting now, this is Netflix, not HBO. Let people binge if they want to.
Why keep the public in the dark?
The good news is that, for the most part, at least for the moment, most journalists seem genuinely captivated by the emerging facts and the terrifying, epic narrative the committee presented Thursday night.
Making more information accessible to the media would keep journalists’ focus on telling the public what happened, rather than engaging in speculation about public opinion and engaging in partisan framing, both-sidesism, bad sports analogies, and theater-criticism analysis
Access to the larger body of evidence would also allow reporters to put future hearings in greater context.
Vice Chair Liz Cheney announced Thursday that Trump, upon hearing about the “hang Mike Pence” chants, had said that “maybe our supporters have the right idea” and that Pence “deserves” it. But knowing who relayed that to the committee and how they were privy to it would have added to the impact, not detracted from it. If journalists can offer the public longer excerpts from depositions in the future, it will only add credibility to the clips shown by the committee, not detract.
Several other assertions made by the committee Thursday night would have had a lot more impact if they had been presented with context.
“As you will see, Representative [Scott] Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential Pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought Presidential Pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election,” Cheney said. Well, who were they? What did they say?
And most intriguing of all, to me, was a clip of General Mike Milley – who remains chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – speaking about his conversation with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on January 6:
He said: We have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions. We need to establish the narrative, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable, or words to that effect. I immediately interpreted that as politics. Politics. Politics. Red flag for me, personally. No action. But I remember it distinctly.
Why was Trump worried about a “narrative” suggesting Pence was “making all the decisions” – when Pence was basically running for his life at the time? When, quite possibly, Pence was narrowly avoiding a kidnap attempt? What did Pence or White House staff do that made Trump fear he was being seen as powerless? Surely committee staffers followed up on this. Why keep us all in suspense?
Start the document dump, and start it now! And let the constant coverage continue.
And I want to reemphasize one point I made on Wednesday. If anyone puts forth any evidence that contradicts the committee’s findings, then of course that should be taken seriously. But any pushback against the committee that doesn’t include a factual challenge should be met with contempt. Journalists should make clear every time they quote a Republican complaining about the committee that they have yet to put forth a single piece of evidence that contradicts its emerging narrative or supports the dangerous, seditious Big Lie that continues to be a central tenet of their party.
The Democrats are making the same mistakes they made in both of Trump’s impeachment hearings – they aren’t presenting all the evidence to the public. Why they’re so damned timid I don’t know, but it’s like, here we go again.
I’m usually 100% with your analysis, but here I think you went astray:
“Making more information accessible to the media would keep journalists’ focus on telling the public what happened, rather than engaging in speculation about public opinion and engaging in partisan framing, both-sidesism, bad sports analogies, and theater-criticism analysis.Access to the larger body of evidence would also allow reporters to put future hearings in greater context.”
It seems to me this is akin to saying the prosecution (or the defense, pick one) should put its entire case to the jury, in writing, and let them make of it what they will.
There’s a reason a legal case is laid out in stages, and with a beginning, middle, and end. It creates a coherent, logical, connect-the-dots narrative that the grand jury (or in this case, the DOJ) can use to determine whether or not to charge the subjects of the investigation.
Putting all the evidence up without chronology or much in the way of that big-picture context, seems like it’s an open invitation for Carlson and Hannity and Jordan and Cruz to cherry-pick bits and shout down all the careful investigators.
Fyi, it’s known as “letting the rope out”.
Now that the Idiot denied the “he deserves to hang ” allegation, they will prove it’s true.
Dragging it out for maximum impact is the opposite of how the impeachment hearings were done. Trump was in clear violation of the emoluments clause from day one. It looks to me like Pelosi refused to act until she was about to lose control of her caucus. The charges presented were tailored so the process would be short as possible, and be over long before the election, to minimize the political impact?!? To protect Donald Trump? That was the effect.
Pelosi didn’t care about making a case to the American people; she didn’t want to impeach in the first place.
Why? Well, there is whole universe of behavior by democrats that doesn’t make sense for a normal political party that wants to win elections and hold power. Certainly, Pelosi’s donors were telling her it was a bad idea. I makes me wonder what the actual proportion is of recruited former republicans. It can’t be big enough.
The committee probably believes that when they stop producing revelations, the media will stop covering the hearings, and I agree.
please excuse this slightly off-topic rant;
What is the Democratic Party? Because with the exception of these hearings, it very often doesn’t act like a political party.
I have an undergraduate degree, and two years of grad course work in political science, I have been watching this stuff for thirty years, trying to make sense of it.
“Incompetence” and “stupidity” are one-sized-fits all excuses for ending analysis. When the same “incompetence” or “stupidity” happens over and over, that is not incompetence, that is a logical response to an incentive we can’t see.
One pattern is the Gorgeous George-evoking obsession with the Marquis of Queensbury rules in their interactions with Republicans, contrasted with the party’s admirable ruthlessness, energy and creativity, it’s extreme “competence” when attacking progressive fellow party members.
2009-2016 was a near-extinction event for the democratic party, while their opposition was this republican party, then they lost to Donald Trump. No other political party in the world would keep the same leadership after that.
It’s also possible that the Committee doesn’t want to jeopardize DOJ’s efforts to build convincing prosecutions. The Committee and DOJ have been cooperating quietly. Part of that cooperation entails preventing likely defendants from knowing what evidence DOJ has against them.
Here you go, Comrade Froomkin:
House January 6 Committee Is Failing but Doesn’t Know Why
By Jonathon Moseley
June 20, 2022
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/house_january_6_committee_is_failing_but_doesnt_know_why.html
“Why was Trump worried about a “narrative” suggesting Pence was “making all the decisions” – when Pence was basically running for his life at the time? When, quite possibly, Pence was narrowly avoiding a kidnap attempt? What did Pence or White House staff do that made Trump fear he was being seen as powerless? Surely committee staffers followed up on this.”
I assume this was a reference to the rather strange fact that it was Pence rather than Trump who finally signed the order for federalized NG units to finally come to the aid of the Capitol on 1/6 and clear out the insurrectionists.
I have no idea what that was about — Milley needed someone to write an authorization? It had to be either the VP or the president, but Trump refused to sign? Milley refused to activate any military units under Trump’s signature because that would put them under his command? I agree about 110% that this matter especially needs more light shed on it. If Milley was afraid that some units or some commanders might follow Trump across the Rubicon if activated under his signature, we need to know that threat has been since dealt with.