It was a year ago this month when the Democratic-led House approved a resolution to create a new special select committee. The importance of its task was tough to overstate: Insurrectionists launched a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol and our democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, and it would fall on the panel’s members and congressional investigators to uncover the truth about what happened.
Tomorrow night, Americans will start to learn what they’ve uncovered. NBC News reported:
Seldom has a set of congressional hearings opened amid so much anticipation and, at the same time, so little guarantee of success. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol will hold the first of at least a half-dozen public hearings this week, having already promised stunning revelations that would lay bare just how dangerously close the U.S. came to losing its democracy.
As the political world prepares for the primetime presentation, let’s get a lay of the land.
What is the first hearing all about?
According to the committee, in the first hearing, members will “present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, and provide the American people an initial summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.”
The committee also intends to “preview additional hearings.”
How many more hearings should we expect?
A detailed schedule is not yet available, but the second hearing is scheduled for Monday morning, and a New York Times report added that we should expect two more next week and others the following week. There will be at least six hearings overall, though even that total might yet grow.
Can the public watch the proceedings?
Most definitely, and congressional investigators are eager for as many Americans to see their findings as possible. MSNBC’s coverage will begin tomorrow night at 7 p.m. eastern, and the hearing itself, which is expected to last roughly two hours, will begin at 8 p.m. eastern.
What about conservative media outlets? Will they air the hearings, too?
Evidently not. Fox News, which covered the Benghazi hearings closely, announced that it will not cover tomorrow night’s event.
I’ve seen some committee hearings, and they tend to be, shall we say, a little dry.
It’s a safe bet that this won’t be like a typical committee hearing. The presentation is about telling a story to the nation. To that end, by some accounts, the panel has even partnered with a former ABC News executive to help “hone a mountain of explosive material into a captivating multimedia presentation.”
We’ve learned quite a bit over the last year about the efforts to subvert our democracy. Is there still more to learn?
To be sure, there have been all kinds of leaks, but committee members insist that dramatic new revelations are still to come.
Who’s scheduled to testify?
We don’t yet know exactly whom we’ll hear from, but according to the committee, the witnesses tomorrow night will include U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was the first law enforcement officer injured by the pro-Trump rioters, and Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who helped capture what transpired around the Capitol on Jan. 6, because he was embedded with the right-wing Proud Boys, which helped storm the building.
Witness lists for other hearings are the subject of ongoing negotiations. What does the committee hope to accomplish? First and foremost, the bipartisan panel appears determined to tell the public the truth about what happened. Beyond that, there are a variety of other possible goals, stemming from legislative solutions to completing a historical record. Lingering in the background is the Justice Department’s own Jan. 6 investigation — which may very well advance in part based on the findings of congressional investigators. Will any of this “move the needle” in terms of the political landscape? That’s a tough question to answer with confidence. In recent years, some stories that were expected to cause political earthquakes left public attitudes unchanged, while other developments that political insiders expected to be meaningless took on far greater significance. I’m of the opinion that it’s best not to guess. The committee appears content to tell the truth, pursue accountability, and let the chips fall where they may. Investigators can bring the facts to the public, but they can’t make the public care. What happens when the hearings end? The committee intends to release a final report in September, ahead of the midterm elections. The panel might also make legislative recommendations — the Electoral Count Act is of particular interest — and criminal referrals to the Justice Department also remain a possibility, though this is another dimension to the investigation that’s still influx. How necessary is all of this? By some measures, little matters more. As a Washington Post editorial concluded this morning, “Americans must be reminded how Jan. 6 called into question many things they could previously take for granted: that their leaders would accede to free and fair election results; that the president would defend the U.S. system of government; that violent resistance to the nation’s democratic institutions would find no succor in the White House or in the halls of Congress. There can be no higher priority than restoring those fundamental norms.” The House Jan. 6 committee is kicking off the first of its public hearings on Thursday, June 9 at 8 p.m. ET. Get expert analysis in real-time on our live blog at msnbc.com/jan6hearings. Related:
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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