The January 6 committee can help separate the former US president from elites, donors, and those who support him because they don’t like the alternative.
Many sophisticated observers of the January 6 committee will judge its success by two key metrics: whether the panel refers former President Donald Trump for criminal investigation and, if so, whether Attorney General Merrick Garland actually proceeds.
Almost everyone around Trump was telling him his public claims of election fraud were “bullshit”, as former Attorney General William Barr put it. The people who continue spreading that myth need to know Trump is making a fool of them. The savviest of his advisers long ago headed for the exits, and the ones who haven’t are not to be believed.Notably, most of the committee’s witnesses against the former president are or were members of Team Trump or the GOP.
If these former Trump loyalists can reject the lies, the committee is effectively telling his current followers, then so can you.And, by the way, there was no honour among Trump’s abetters; the committee has evidence, one of its two Republican members has said, that GOP politicians who may have been involved with coordinating the January 6 effort had sought pardons, leaving everybody else exposed to prosecution.
My background is in homeland security, and I have previously argued that counterterrorism holds lessons in how to isolate Trump and de-radicalise MAGA extremists. Earlier this year, I was among hundreds of experts contacted by committee staffers who were seeking perspective about the events of January 6.
A fair question is how many of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters are actually seeing the committee’s work. Some of Trump supporters’ preferred media platforms are largely ignoring the proceedings. But the hearings and the conversations they spawn appear on numerous national outlets and local news. Fox News at least covered them in the daytime.
Donors “deserve better than what President Trump and his team did,” Lofgren declared, lending a sympathetic ear to those who might be feeling a little duped. Perhaps she doesn’t really believe it, but it works as a way of saying: “Have you had enough yet?”
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