In recent months, the commission has heard more than a thousand witnesses, collected tens of thousands of documents and obtained private communications between senior White House officials, personal advisers to Trump, Republican Congressmen and far-right groups that have played a major role in the storming of the Capitol.
Virtually every attempt by the commission to find out the truth was thwarted. Trump confidants declined to testify and there is a gap of more than seven and a half hours in the former president’s phone transcripts. Ultimately, however, the committee believes it can now paint a clear picture of what happened.
To reinforce the conclusions, the public witness hearings will start on Thursday evening. “We have found evidence that there has been much more than just inducement,” leading Democratic committee member Jamie Raskin told The Washington Post.
He added that the hearings will reveal the story of “a conspiracy that should have nullified the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and prevented the transfer of power.”
In order to tell that story, the committee will present hitherto secret White House documents, photos and video. Witnesses have been called upon to support that material with statements under oath.
It has not been announced yet, but senior officials under Vice President Mike Pence and associates of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows are expected to make their appearance.
moral test
The hearings will take place in front of the nation and will be broadcast live on TV on prime time, when millions of people are watching. But despite Liz Cheney’s desire to prove to the American public that there was a conspiracy, Trump supporters and millions of her own Republican party won’t look at it.
The most-watched conservative Fox News, which maintains that January 6 was a runaway protest by peaceful protesters, has decided not to broadcast the public hearings. For example, Trump’s supporters will never see the new evidence, but the question is whether they would have been convinced by it.
According to them, the Commission of Inquiry itself is the result of a conspiracy against their President Trump, whose lie that he won the election they still believe. “Trump has so far shown no remorse, in fact, his statements are only getting more extreme,” Cheney said. How Republicans are dealing with the aftermath of January 6, she says, is a moral test for her party.
–
