After eight gripping hearings, the panel investigating the January 6 attack has completed its first phase of laying out one of the most consequential stories of the modern era: how America’s democracy came to the brink of collapse in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
It was a story that at times seemed remarkably complex, involving the vice-president, justice department, advisers inside and outside government, state and federal elected officials, election workers, fringe legal theories and violent extremist groups. But at its core it was a very simple story: a president who was determined to stay in power and use whatever power he could to do so.
“The January 6 committee has laid out how close we came to full-blown constitutional chaos. Trump and his allies were ready to break through any barrier – both physical and legal – to install him to a second term,” said Nick Penniman, the CEO of Issue One, a good government group. “The collusion and complicity was vast.”
Trump sought to overturn the election even as his inner circle warned him that what he was doing was probably unlawful and was fomenting violence. The hearings revealed how the president was willing to do whatever it took, even condoning the idea of a violent mob hanging his vice-president.
“The disease in the American body politic that the hearings have so ably diagnosed, including the members frequently addressing the threat, was addressed once before when a grand coalition came together in 2020 to defeat Trumpism and defend democracy. It can be addressed again if appropriate steps are taken,” said Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as special counsel to the House judiciary committee during Trump’s first impeachment.
As much as America is built on the rule of law and its institutions, it was the actions of a handful of people that ensured Joe Biden was seated as the lawfully elected president.
There was Mike Pence, who refused to acquiesce to Trump’s pressure campaign to block the lawful counting of electoral votes. There were top officials at the justice department – first, attorney general Bill Barr, who told Trump his claims of fraud were “bullshit”, and later acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue, his deputy, who refused an effort to install a Trump loyalist and put the department’s credibility behind specious fraud accusations. There were state officials, Brad Raffensperger in Georgia and Rusty Bowers in Arizona, who refused to entertain far-fetched schemes to overturn the election.
“The hearings have revealed how fragile our democracy is, and how important it is to install people of integrity into positions of public trust,” Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney in Michigan, wrote in an email. “We should consider fortifying our democracy through laws, such as amending the electoral count act to clarify the role of the vice-president and demanding transparency at the highest levels of government.”
But even though Trump’s effort didn’t succeed in overturning the election in 2020, he unleashed a movement of election deniers that is now trying to set its hooks deep into the machinery of America’s election systems.
The vast majority of Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen. At least 120 GOP nominees this year deny the results of the 2020 election, according to FiveThirtyEight. Some of them are running to be their state’s top election official, a position from which they would wield enormous power over election results. This month, Trump called the most powerful Republican in Wisconsin and asked him to help overturn the 2020 race.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer closely involved in Trump’s strategy for overturning the election, is leading a push to recruit people who don’t believe the 2020 election to work the polls. While parties have long recruited people to be their eyes and ears in the precinct on election day, there’s concern that these new workers could spur more misunderstanding and confusion over election procedures.
Meanwhile, experienced election officials, facing a wave of harassment, are leaving their jobs. Vigilante groups of citizens are going door-to-door looking for voter fraud and pushing officials to conduct shoddy post-election reviews and move to hand-counting election results. There is growing concern that election workers may unlawfully lead breaches into voting equipment and software.
And perhaps most alarmingly, some local election boards have refused to certify primary races this year.
“The January 6 committee hearings have revealed that the insurrection didn’t really end on January 6, it just metastasized,” Eisen said.
Congress is already taking some steps to shore up the cracks that January 6 exposed. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would clarify ambiguities in a 19th century law that would make it harder for Trump or any future presidential candidate to overturn a validly held election.
But Eisen, who voiced concern about the bipartisan senate proposal on Wednesday, said perhaps the most important outcome of the January 6 hearings would be criminal prosecutions for those who were involved in efforts to overturn the election, including Trump. The decision over whether to prosecute will probably fall to attorney general Merrick Garland, one of the principal audiences for the committee’s public hearings.
“They should be held accountable because what they did was wrong. But, bringing them to justice will also prevent them from doing the same thing again and again. That is why it’s so urgent that prosecutors act,” he said.
McQuade agreed that prosecution would be the most important consequence of the hearings.
“We need to hold accountable those who attacked our democracy through criminal prosecution. An important part of criminal prosecution is deterrence,” she said. “Unless we prosecute those who worked to undermine our democracy, they will be emboldened to try again.”
