House investigators have come far closer than I anticipated to pinning both moral and legal responsibility for the insurrection directly on Trump.įrom the beginning, the matter of blame for January 6 clearly traced back to Trump in certain ways. He has a gift for staying just on this side of the line that, if crossed, might bring about a legal or political reckoning.īut the committee has changed my mind. Trump, I thought, was simply too good at escaping accountability, keeping himself an arm’s length away from active involvement. When the committee began presenting its evidence in June, I was skeptical that House investigators would be able to show any greater involvement on Trump’s part than what was already public on the day of the insurrection: that Trump had whipped up violence with the Big Lie of election fraud and refused to help quell the riot once it got going. In that way, the committee’s work ended where it began: focusing minutely on the responsibility of Trump himself. “We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” said Vice Chair Liz Cheney, the panel’s lead Republican. And finally, the committee members voted unanimously to subpoena the former president. It shared evidence that the Secret Service had received reports of potential violence before January 6 and was unnerved by Donald Trump’s role in encouraging that violence on the day itself. Over the course of two hours, the panel broadcast striking footage of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other members of congressional leadership sheltering in the depths of Congress during the Capitol riot, desperately calling for help. Yesterday, the January 6 committee gathered for what might have been its last public convening-a finale of sorts to the blockbuster series of hearings that began in June.
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