The January 6 committee hearings begin

Cheney impresses, Thompson doesn't.

The House January 6 committee has kicked off its hearings. Tonight’s hearing consisted of speeches by the committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, and its ranking member, Liz Cheney; testimony from two witnesses; and chilling footage of the assault on the Capitol.

I’m not sure Thompson could have been less impressive. He claimed to come before us “not as a Democrat but as an American.” Sure.

If he’s non-partisan, why didn’t he and Nancy Pelosi allow Republicans of the minority’s choosing to serve on the committee? Sure, Jim Jordan would have made a nuisance of himself, but he also would have countered partisan overreach. In any case, that’s how hearings like this have always worked, and it lends them credibility.

Thompson discredited himself with far-fetched comparisons between January 6 and the Civil War, as well as the sacking of the Capitol by the Brits in 1814. He also threw in references to the KKK for good measure.

Thompson, by the way, has been involved in at least two ethics scandals.

On the other hand, I don’t see how Liz Cheney could have been much more impressive. In contrast to Thompson, she didn’t stray far afield. Instead, she laid out what she says the evidence from the hearings will show.

According to Cheney, it will show that Trump’s election fraud claims are baseless, and that Trump was so informed by his election team, attorney general Bill Barr, and others. Cheney concluded from this that Trump knew his fraud claims were false.

Here, I think, she went too far. Trump should have known his claims were false but, narcissist that he is, probably believed them. That’s almost as bad as making the claims knowing they were false.

According to Cheney, the evidence will show that, for an extended period, Trump refused to call off the mob attacking the Capitol, as his advisers and Republican leaders pleaded with him to do. Even family members urged this of him.

Cheney stated that, according to testimony from former White House staffers, Trump responded that the rioters were “doing what they should be doing.” She added that while members of the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump said to aides, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it.’”

The evidence will also show, according to Cheney, that Trump summoned the mob to D.C., assembled it, and “lit the flame” that produced the riot. Cheney pointed to a December 19 tweet in which Trump told his followers, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Like so much of what Trump says, this statement walks up to the line but arguably doesn’t cross it. “Will be wild” could mean several things short of a riot.

I doubt Trump could be found guilty of incitement based on this statement and other potentially inflammatory ones he made in the buildup to the riot. However, these statements, coupled with his persistent unsupported claims that the election was stolen from him, were quite reckless. Trump had to know they could produce violence.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump bears some responsibility for the rioting.

How much? We’ll see what the evidence ends up showing. But any responsibility at all should be enough to cause Republicans to look elsewhere for their next nominee.

As for the evidence presented tonight, it didn’t prove much but some of it made for good television. The footage of the rioting undercut the claims of some Trump supporters that there wasn’t much to the events at the Capitol.

The testimony of Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who was knocked unconscious during the initial rioting and later injured again when she rejoined the struggle, had strong emotional appeal. Edwards fought alongside fellow officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day. She described him as ghostly white after rioters inflicted pepper spray on him. In Edwards’ telling, she witnessed “carnage” (officers on the ground bleeding), “chaos,” and “hand-to-hand combat.”

The other witness was documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was embedded with some of the Proud Boy rioters and filmed some of the rioting. Thompson questioned him.

That examination was pedestrian and proved nothing. Many a channel was changed during this portion of the hearing, I suspect.

The hearing concluded with video of some rioters saying they came to D.C. because Trump asked them to come and said big things will happen. Trump, of course, had the right to ask protesters to come to Washington even in a bad cause, though it was irresponsible for him to have done so. The “big things” remark is another case of Trump approaching the line, but having ambiguity on his side — at least from a legal, if not a moral, point of view.

Will these hearings distract Americans from the incompetence of Joe Biden? No. Will they hurt Trump’s standing with Republicans? Maybe somewhat, but I don’t know.

However, the more Liz Cheney has the floor and the less Bennie Thompson does, the more likely it is that the hearings will “move the needle.”