Why the January 6 revelations about Trump are so utterly shocking

Have you been watching? You probably have. If you haven’t seen all of the hearings of the House committee investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, then you may have seen some of the highlights – more truthfully the “lowlights” – of this wretched, disturbing episode in America’s recent history.

At times, I’ve watched the hearings of what is officially called the “National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex” with the volume turned down. Our staff in Washington DC have been covering them very much with the volume turned up, frequently from inside the chamber, for the proceedings overseen by Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney.

The GOP congresswoman from Wyoming has been at the top of Donald Trump’s list of most hated people since she said his words and deeds had incited the attacks and that he should be held accountable. She voted to impeach him – one of just ten Republicans in the House who dared to do so – which led Trump to back a primary challenger to her. He did the same with others who had voted for his impeachment.

So I’ve been dipping in and out of the hearings, stopping to take in the most striking moments, and trying to think about what it all means. Several things struck me immediately.

First up, almost 18 months after the attack on the Capitol, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed inside a joint session of Congress that was meeting to certify Joe Biden’s electoral college tally, the events remain utterly shocking. So do the apparent arrogance and flagrant disregard for democratic norms on the part of Trump.

Much of what the committee has covered is not 100 per cent new, but to be reminded of the details – the pressure on the vice-president to act unconstitutionally as a crowd shouted “Hang Mike Pence”; the warnings given to Trump by his own lawyers that his actions were illegal; the fact that the man pushing a legal theory he hoped might negate the results asked for a pardon, apparently fearful he was committing a felony – are enough to stop you in your tracks. All these details make you say out loud, “Trump really did try to overturn an election.”

As Independent columnist Ahmed Baba wrote this week: “This hearing put into perspective exactly how expansive Trump’s effort to overturn the election really was.”

Another revelation has been the human cost of Trump’s actions. Lots of things have been said and written about the ways in which the then president’s behaviour threatened to shred the foundations of America’s democratic system, a top-down analysis that has sought to assess the level of danger faced by the Republic. But at the ground level, it screwed up a lot of people’s lives and left them living in fear.

Some may be tempted to laugh mockingly at the comedic efforts at constitutional manipulation of Rudy Giuliani and lawyer John Eastman. But listening to the committee, it was clear that while their actions may have been ridiculous at times, they were also utterly dangerous.

The committee made public a death threat sent to congressman Adam Kinzinger, another GOP member of the committee, and another Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment. And, even more powerfully, it heard from election workers in the state of Georgia, such as Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who said her life, and that of her mother Ruby Freeman, had been turned upside down.

“I no longer give out my business card. I don’t transfer calls. I don’t want anyone knowing my name. I don’t want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out in the grocery aisle or something. I don’t go to the grocery store at all; I haven’t been anywhere at all,” sobbed Moss.

Her mother, a former Fulton County election worker, spoke in similar terms. She said: “I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation. I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people, starting with No 45 [Trump] and his ally Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my daughter.”

There was one other thought that jumped out – a question that has been raised by a lot of people: does any of this matter? From a legal perspective, will the committee make any sort of referral to the Department of Justice? Would Biden allow his attorney general Merrick Garland to pursue charges against the former president, even if prosecutors decided there was sufficient evidence of wrongdoing? It would be a huge, unprecedented decision were he to do so.

The other issue is whether it matters politically. Is any of this enough to change minds, or are too many people listening with the sound down – or not listening at all?

Most assume that the country has already made up its mind on the events of 6 January, and that with Biden’s approval rating at just 39 per cent, and inflation soaring, the new details about the insurrection are unlikely – except, perhaps, in a couple of suburban seats – to do much to help stop a Republican wave in the midterms. One poll suggested that only a third of Americans had listened to the hearings, and that there was a clear ideological division, with Democrats twice as likely to have been watching as Republicans.

There is another way to look at this: I think the hearings are essential, and that Americans ought to be watching with their eyes open. What we have heard so far suggests that Trump very cynically did everything in his power to overturn the election, and to promote his lies that the contest had been rigged. And he knew what he was doing.

Furthermore, he has not changed his view of what happened, at least not in public. And in November, lots of denialist Republicans – those who support his “big lie” – will be asking people to vote for them.

No matter how this plays out, either legally or politically, it is essential that we listen to these events and learn from them.

Yours,

Andrew Buncombe

Chief US correspondent