26 United States The Economist June 11th 2022
mony, recorded interviews and other video
footage. The first, jointly led by Ms Cheney
and the committee’s Democratic chair
man, Bennie Thompson, will air at prime
time, from 8pm local time; the second will
take place on June 13th. Fresh revelations
about the attempted coup are promised.
The opening promises to be quite a
show. The committee is reportedly plan
ning to play snippets of testimony from
Ivanka Trump, presumably describing her
unsuccessful efforts to persuade her father
to call off his supporters during the two
hours he sat watching them ransacking the
Capitol. The sessions will feature little of
the partisan bickering and selfregarding
questioning that bedevils most congres
sional hearings. No big differences divide
the committee’s two Republicans, Adam
Kinzinger and Ms Cheney, from its Demo
crats. Most of the questions will be asked
by professional investigators, as they were
during Mr Trump’s second impeachment
trial, also prompted by the riot.What we know, and when we knew it
Briefings and leaks of the committee’s
work suggest it aims to prosecute a much
fuller and more detailed case against him
and his cronies than the Senate did. The
committee will aim to show that the
Trump team’s machinations were meticu
lously planned and orchestrated, and
criminal in intent. In an email contained
in court documents, a lawyer advising Mr
Trump, John Eastman, argued that Mike
Pence should delay certifying the election
on January 6th 2021, and acknowledged
that this would be illegal. (He claimed it
would be only a “minor violation”.) On the
basis of this and other evidence, the com
mittee argued in a civil court filing in
March that it had “a goodfaith basis for
concluding that [Mr Trump] and members
of his Campaign engaged in a criminal
conspiracy to defraud the United States”.
Yet the fact that Ms Cheney’s exhorta
tion needs underlining, when so much
about Mr Trump’s subversion is already
known, points to another huge difference
between this hearing and previous ones.
The campaign to overthrow the election
was publicised in detail at the time. Audio
tape of Mr Trump pushing Georgia’s secre
tary of state to help him “find 11,780 votes”
was leaked the following day. Planning for
the Capitol riot was reported weeks before
it took place. “On January 6th, armed
Trumpist militias will be rallying in dcat
Trump’s orders,” tweeted Arieh Kovler, a
political scientist who studies farright
groups. “It’s highly likely that they’ll try to
storm the Capitol...And people will die.”
The riot that ensued was broadcast live
and was so obviously the culmination of
Mr Trump’s efforts that even most Republi
can leaders at first said as much. Kevin Mc
Carthy, the Republican leader in theHouse, said publicly that the former presi
dent was responsible and told colleagues
he would instruct Mr Trump to resign. Yet
it quickly transpired that most Republican
voters preferred Mr Trump’s version of re
alityto the evidence of their eyes. So Mr
McCarthy and most other Republican law
makers backpedalled, leaving Ms Cheney
and Mr Kinzinger among the few in their
party willing to stand against insurrection.
Democrats and some Republicans had
pushed for a more powerful independent
inquiry, along the lines of the commission
on the September 11th attacks. Republican
senators nixed that, so House Democrats
launched the committee as a secondbest
option. It is by definition more partisan
than the independent inquiry would have
been, notwithstanding the brave participa
tion of Ms Cheney, who is likely to be
drummed out of Congress in November’s
midterm elections, and Mr Kinzinger,
who has said he will not run for reelec
tion. In February, the Republican National
Committee voted to censure them for en
gaging in the “persecution of ordinary citi
zens engaged in legitimate political dis
course”—an apparent reference to the riot.
Mr McCarthy and other leading Repub
licans have refused to comply with the
committee’s summonses. Their hostility
has also imposed an unofficial timelimit
on its investigations. The Republicans will
probably take the House at the midterms
and, under the likely Speakership of Mr
McCarthy, would sabotage the committee
given the chance. With such leadership,
Republican voters have become even less
convinced that Mr Trump has anything to
answer for than they were immediately
after the riot. Around 55% of Americans
say he was not mainly responsible for it.
The forthcoming hearings are extreme
ly unlikely to persuade many of them oth
erwise. Reality denial has become a dominant feature of American conservatism.
And Republican lawmakers and allied me
dia are labouring to ensure it remains so.
Mr McCarthy and his crew have for weeks
been rubbishing the hearings as a partisan
witchhunt. Fox News, the country’s most
watched cablenews channel, will not
broadcast them live. How easily the demo
cratic system can unravel, indeed.
Yet the hearings represent much more
than a chronicle of democratic decline.
They may be the Democrats’ last best hope
of rallying complacent voters against Mr
Trump and his supporters ahead of the
midterms. Perhaps more important, they
and the report that follow will offer the ful
lest historical record of the riot, Mr
Trump’s wider attack on democracyand
how near or far it came to succeeding.nFollowing a lieThePennsylvaniaSenateraceHearts and minds
T
hree weeks after a primary election,
victorious Senate candidates have typi
cally already logged many miles on the
road to make their pitch to the broader
electorate. Not so in Pennsylvania, where
both candidates have been in limbo. On the
Republican side Mehmet Oz, a cardiotho
racic surgeon and former television host,
finally claimed victory on June 3rd after his
principal opponent, David McCormick,
conceded amid a recount. The Democratic
nominee, the state’s lieutenantgovernor,
John Fetterman, remains sidelined after
suffering a stroke days before the primary.
The stakes are high. In Pennsylvania
Democrats have a rare opportunity to
poach a Senate seat (currently held by a re
tiring Republican) that could enable them
to preserve their narrow majority. The race
may well decide control of the upper
chamber. Both parties have gambled on
unorthodox candidates. Despite winning
the Republican nomination, Dr Oz remains
unloved by the party faithful, and is a polit
ical neophyte untested in a general elec
tion. And though Democrats adore the
hulking Mr Fetterman, his health struggles
threaten his campaign.
Whatever thin political profile Dr Oz
had before announcing his candidacy was
coloured by his affiliation with leftlean
ing celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, whose
show elevated him to fame. Many Republi
cans found the former television host’s
zeal for conservative causes such as draco
nian restrictions on abortion hard to be
lieve when, in some cases, he had previWASHINGTON, DC
Two unconventional candidates pose
risks for the parties’ Senate hopes