In the final session of a summer of hearings, the United States House January 6th committee focused on the three hours of presidential inaction from Donald Trump as a violent mob attacked the Capitol. He eventually issued a video urging rioters to go home, but only after encouraging supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol. He offered no condemnation or reproach: “We love you, you’re very special,” he told the crowds.
This is the nub of the case being made against the former president. “President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes,” one of the two committee Republicans, Adam Kinzinger, insists. “He chose not to act.” “In the end it is not, as it may appear, a story of inaction in a time of crisis,” Democratic member Elaine Luria argued, “but instead is the final action of Trump’s own plan to usurp the will of the American people and remain in power.”
Treason? Perhaps, but culpable intent is perhaps not yet proven. At the very least, as a string of generals and admirals have together argued publicly, it may amount to criminal dereliction of duty by the commander in chief in failing to protect the institutions of the state. Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, spoke of his alarm in recorded testimony: “You’re the commander-in-chief and there is an attack on the US Capitol. And there’s nothing? No call? Zero?” Trump refused even to take a call from the Pentagon to coordinate action, because, according to a White House lawyer, “the president didn’t want anything done.”
Trump was not exactly idle, or distracted by other business. Watching every development on TV in the White House, he fielded repeated entreaties from aides, political allies, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, even his children Donald Jnr and Ivanka, to do something. He spent time lobbying Congress to support his bid to overturn the election, even tweeting about vice-president Mike Pence’s betrayal, joking that he deserved to be hanged.
Whether the hearings, which continue in September, produce enough for criminal charges, they are doing an important job at the bar of public opinion, even though polling suggests most have already made up minds But, Kinzinger warns, “the forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away”. And, last week, a Democrat group filed a complaint against the Federal Election Commission, accusing it of allowing Trump to break campaign finance law by spending political donations from a $100 million war chest on a 2024 presidential bid he has yet only hinted at.
“We may have to run again,” Trump said in South Carolina in March, as he campaigned for House candidates. “In 2024, we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder. I wonder.”