For anyone with half an eye on the eye-popping January 6th committee hearings in Washington, tomorrow’s instalment will be appointment viewing. So pivotal is this one that the members have moved it to prime-time from the usual lunchtime slot.
Not ideal timing for followers five hours ahead but the committee’s focus is on a much more crucial if elusive audience: the soft Trumpers, those Republicans who might yet be salvaged from the wreckage of Trump’s toxic GOP.
The hope is to cut through to the persuadable tens of millions who haven’t tuned in before — those who work in the daytime and hadn’t the time or couldn’t be bothered to replay the proceedings, possibly because they believed the hearings were rigged against Trump or they knew enough already.
This is why the committee has to throw everything at tomorrow’s event. It has to be both stunningly watchable and convincing.
Pence’s first instinct was not to follow the law without hesitation. It was to ring former vice-president Dan Quayle for advice
Most of us who sat slack-jawed watching the January 6th attack live, believed we knew enough already. These hearings have disabused us of that. The tight, two-hour format with its sharply scripted commentary, slick edits, heart-tugging live witnesses and emotive closing speeches often delivered with a brand new cliffhanger — such as last week’s showstopper when vice-chair Liz Cheney named Trump as having attempted a little witness-tampering — is designed precisely for the Netflix age.
Cheney’s closing words routinely include a meaningful warning to cowering men to do the sensible thing — save yourselves now by coming forward. The fact that some big beasts, such as Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cippolone, have been smoked out in the process is a testament to its success.
At the heart of it is the murderous Stop the Steal January 6th attack on the Capitol, which the committee has argued persuasively, was conceived, promoted and directed by Donald Trump, that he did it in the full knowledge that he had lost the election and that some of his people heading for the Capitol that day were armed.
[ Kathy Sheridan: Across the world, the patriarchy is fighting back Opens in new window ]
Thursday’s hearing will dissect what Trump did and did not do on that day, doubtless with the assistance of Cippolone’s deposition as well as another big beast, Trump’s former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger (who resigned on January 6th), and a former deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews.
It looks like a week of reckoning for Trump and his acolytes. Steve Bannon — Trump’s chaos-whisperer to the end, described by one commentator as “a lit bomb in the mouth of democracy” — has gone on trial for refusing to co-operate with the committee’s investigation.
On Friday, Trump plans to campaign in Arizona for his choice in a Republican primary, where interestingly, an opposing candidate is being backed by his former vice-president turned national treasure, Mike Pence.
Pence’s elevation reflects the inevitable downside of the hearings; the extravagant heroising of public servants who were simply doing their jobs. Since the vast majority of the witnesses are dyed-in-the-wool Trumpers who knew precisely what their boss was made of when they swore to serve him, it is quite a spectacle to see them morph from lickspittles to honoured role models and probably a deliberate one by the committee.
There are others whose presence before the committee is devoutly desired
Cipollone even suggested that Mike Pence should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for proceeding with his ceremonial counting job on January 6th. It’s true that Pence stood up against Trump’s rage and returned to finish the vote certification. But isn’t that precisely what is supposed to qualify certain people for those jobs of great power and privilege — the ability to think on their feet, to stay calm, to be on the alert for the famous 3am call? If they cannot be relied upon to do that, even under pain of death or injury, what are they for?
Sure, the mob was looking for his head but this wasn’t a complex legal or moral quandary. All Pence had to know in essence was that by doing Trump’s bidding he would be breaking the law.
Yet Pence’s first instinct was not to follow the law without hesitation. It was to ring former vice-president Dan Quayle for advice. Repeatedly Pence asked if there was anything he could do, according to exchanges cited by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in “Peril”. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away ... You have no power,” said Quayle, who once generated a national frenzy by misspelling potato.
How low is the bar if the country’s highest civilian honour is recommended for doing the bare minimum required of the job — and only then after seeking alternatives? To this day, Pence maintains a monastic silence about his four-year Trump servitude and January 6th. The committee is considering whether to subpoena him. He is pushing back, of course, quoting “risky precedent”.
His presidential ambitions have been hugely bolstered by the accolades — why would he do anything to risk them?
Meanwhile, there are others whose presence before the committee is devoutly desired. One such is Ginni Thomas, spouse of Clarence, Supreme Court justice. She has declined of course.
My money is on Liz Cheney.