WASHINGTON — The televised hearings that begin Thursday into the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol will need to produce show-stopping moments to grab a divided, distracted nation that has largely moved on.
It’s a tall order.
At their best, congressional hearings capture the public’s imagination, reveal scoundrels, lead to landmark reforms, and even make stars of questioners and witnesses. Exhibit A is the Watergate testimony in 1973 that helped end a presidency.
But that was before social media and polarized cable news. Now hearings on such things as the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, or Robert Mueller’s fumbling 2019 testimony about his Trump-Russia investigation have failed to make much of a splash.
The committee says it plans to present evidence of a deliberate, coordinated effort by Trump and associates to delay certification of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election — and how that became tied to the violent insurrection at the Capitol. The panel hopes to give a coherent narrative to engage a public that polling shows has already made up its mind about the event and is more concerned about inflation, Ukraine and COVID-19.
“A disappointing result would be, ‘Yeah, we understand there was a coup — and who cares?’” Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat on the special committee that is conducting the hearings, said.
At least six sessions are planned, two of them in prime time. The opening night will provide a broad overview. Subsequent sessions will focus on specific topics, such as pressure put on state and local officials regarding election results. A final hearing will be scheduled in the fall to release a report before voters head to the polls in the mid-term elections.
“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the House select committee said in an announcement of Thursday’s hearing last week.
The committee hasn’t revealed details of what’s planned but it hired James Goldston, a former president of ABC News, to help with the presentation, according to two people familiar with the event who asked not to be identified. A respected documentary producer, he’s assembled a multimedia portrayal to help make sense of the evidence, the people said. It will include previously unpublished behind-the-scenes photos of Trump on Jan. 6 taken by White House photographers as well as video of closed-door witness testimony.
CBS and ABC plan to air the hearing live, according to representatives of the networks. NBC News and News NOW will devote a special news report to the hearing as it convenes and the network’s streaming service, Peacock, will provide live coverage as will cable affiliate MSNBC. Representatives of CNN and Fox didn't respond to a request for details of their plans.
Leading House Republicans plan to provide running counter-commentary and public criticism on cable and the airwaves, in opinion columns, and their own press conference the day of Thursday's opening hearing.
Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana — two Republicans who were blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi from seats on the committee — are among those expected to be the most visible, along with House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Representatives of Trump have been in contact with members of Congress aligned with the former president who will provide the immediate response to what comes out of the hearings, similar to what happened during Trump's two impeachment trials, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
The Republican National Committee also plans on "aggressively responding to the partisan attacks and political theater the Democrats are engaging in with Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate January 6 Committee,'' spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said.
Former White House Counsel John Dean — whose 1973 testimony helped blow the whistle on Richard Nixon’s abuse of power — said the Jan. 6 hearings need to reveal new details and would benefit from hostile witnesses if they are to draw interest and have impact.
“It could be a loser if they don’t put on a good show,” said Dean, who is now a retired investment banker, author and commentator.
A steady drip of leaks about the committee’s findings over its nearly 11 months of work threatens to color the proceedings as a rehash for an insurrection-news-fatigued audience.
But committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, says these hearings are designed to “give the public the benefit of what more than a year’s worth of investigation has borne to the committee.”
Whether that is enough to alter perceptions of the attack is another matter. Timothy Naftali, a former director of the Nixon Presidential Library who is now a historian at New York University, said, “I think it would take something extraordinary” from the hearings to change views of the public. Earlier, Americans found themselves spellbound with the opposing stories told in 1948 by Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers during House un-American Activities Committee hearings.
Testimony by top tobacco industry chiefs in 1994 that they didn’t believe cigarettes were addictive amazed the public and proved a turning point in regulation. The first impeachment hearings of Donald Trump produced memorable moments, and made minor celebrities of people such as Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, but failed to sway enough Senators for conviction.
One aim of the Jan. 6 panel is to put down the foundation for legislative changes they want to make to an 1887 law governing the congressional certification process, a way to guard against future efforts to undermine election results. The assault on the Capitol came as lawmakers were certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, a previously ceremonial event that Trump supporters tried to halt by force.
Despite the searing video and images, the assault never became the sort of shared national trauma that Watergate or the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks or Pearl Harbor did, each of which galvanized public opinion across the political spectrum, Naftali said.
Rather, Naftali argues Trump and Republicans largely have been insulated from accountability by deep social and political divisions.
There are conflicting signals coming from the nine Jan. 6 committee members in how much to promise as they try to organize information in an understandable way from more than 1,000 private interviews or depositions, more than 100,000 records, miles of video footage, and witness testimony.
Court papers, sworn testimonies and other investigative documents indicate that Justice Department officials Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue, along with aides to aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, including his former chief of staff Marc Short and former general counsel Greg Jacob, may appear.
Others who might testify include Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to the last Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Keith Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general and Pence aide who was with Trump on Jan. 6.
Some panel members such as Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, say they “will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House.” Others, like Logren and Representative Pete Aguilar, California Democrats, are more circumspect in that the job is to present information credibly and accessibly for a wide swath of the American public.
“I think we should be honest about the expectations,” Aguilar said. “Our job is to tell the truth. It’s not to, you know, create the next Marvel movie.”
