The Economist - USA (2022-06-11)

The Economist June 11th 2022 25

United States

TheJanuary6thhearings

The insurrection televised

C

ongressional hearings have provid­

ed some of the great dramas of Ameri­

can politics. A Senate probe in 1923 into the

corrupt  sale  of  oil  leases  at  Teapot  Dome,

Wyoming,  sullied  the  reputation  of  Presi­

dent  Warren  Harding  and  was  considered

“the  greatest  and  most  sensational  scan­

dal”. Then the Watergate hearings, in 1973,

raised  the  bar.  Tens  of  millions  of  people

tuned in to watch live broadcasts of Rich­

ard Nixon’s slow­drip demise.

Massive public interest was in both cas­

es  justified  by  the  gravity  of  the  issue  in

hand—probity at the highest levels of gov­

ernment—and  by  Congress’s  success  in

upholding  it.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the

Senate’s  Army­McCarthy  hearings  of  1954,

and,  less  resoundingly,  of  the  Iran­Contra

hearings  of  1987,  from  which  Ronald  Rea­

gan’s  reputation  never  fully  recovered.

Box­office value aside, such hearings were

an advert for congressional oversight and a

tribute to the American system.

The  public  hearings  that  the  House’s

January  6th  select  committee  will  hold

from June 9thare arguably more important

than  all  the  above  combined.  For  the  past

year the committee’s nine members—sev­

en  Democrats  and  two  Republicans—and

its investigators have been working to un­

cover the circumstances that gave rise to a

multipronged effort to stop the transfer of

power after the 2020 presidential election.

As  with  the  Watergate  hearings,  the

committee’s investigation is much broader

than the incident—an attack on the Capitol

by  2,500  of  Donald  Trump’s  supporters—

that  it  was  named  after.  Divided  into  col­

our­coded teams, its members have inves­

tigated the campaign by Mr Trump and his

coterie to press state, local and federal offi­

cials  to  overturn  the  election  result;  the

role of right­wing extremist groups in rein­

forcing  that  effort;  the  “Save  America”

Trump rally outside the White House that

preceded  the  Capitol  riot;  and  the  financ­

ing  of  all  of  this.  The  issue  in  hand  is  ac­

cordingly  not  mere  probity,  a  quality  no

one expects of Mr Trump, but the continu­

ing  threat  to  democratic  government  that

he and his supporters represent.

Despite  fierce  pushback  from  the  for­

mer  president  and  Republicans  at  large,

the  committee  has  conducted  more  than

1,000  interviews—including  with  insur­

rectionists, intelligence agents and the few

senior  members  of  Mr  Trump’s  retinue

willing to testify. Having also reviewed ov­

er 140,000 documents, it is due to release a

report  on  its  findings  in  September.  The

impending  six  public  sessions  will  there­

fore be less like the usual congressional in­

quiry than an impeachment trial. They will

not  invite  Americans  to  witness  the  pro­

cess  of  investigation  so  much  as  show

them what has already been discovered.

“The  hearings  will  tell  a  story  that  will

really blow the roof off the House,” predict­

ed one of the committee’s members, Jamie

Raskin. “People must watch, and they must

understand how easily our democratic sys­

tem can unravel if we don’t defend it,” en­

joined  its  Republican  vice­chairwoman,

Liz Cheney, on June 5th.

The  committee’s  only  previous  public

hearing, in July last year, combined footage

of  the  insurrection  with  harrowing  testi­

mony  from  four  of  the  law­enforcement

officers who fought it. This month’s hear­

ings will contain a similar mix of live testi­

WASHINGTON, DC

The House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the United States

Capitol is about to reveal its findings. Half of America is watching

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