One of the more common complaints from Donald Trump about the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation is, as the Republican put it last week, “one-sided.” The former president added that the televised hearings have been “a one-way street.”
In a way, there’s some truth to that, but not in the way Trump intended: The House select committee is hearing testimony from a great many people, but those looking for Democrats will have a surprisingly difficult time.
NBC News highlighted some of the high-profile witnesses who’ll appear before the bipartisan panel today.
Witnesses appearing live before the panel will describe how they were hounded and harassed for doing their jobs and upholding Biden’s rightful victory in their states. One witness will be Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, who stood firm when Trump implored him in a recorded phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in the state.
Sitting alongside Raffensperger will be Georgia’s Gabriel Sterling, the Republican who served as the state’s voting system implementation manager, and Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the House in Arizona.
As Rachel noted on last night’s show, Bowers was a rare official who not only faced pressure to participate in Team Trump’s anti-election scheme, but who publicly disclosed the behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts when they happened.
This comes on the heels of the most recent committee hearing, which featured two witnesses: Greg Jacob, a Republican lawyer from former Vice President Mike Pence’s team, and retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, a leading figure in conservative jurisprudence who also advised Pence.
In the hearing before that, the witnesses included Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor; Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent Republican elections attorney; BJay Pak, a Republican U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration; and Al Schmidt, a former Republican city commissioner in Pennsylvania.
Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager, was supposed to participate in the same hearing, but was called away on a family medical matter.
During the hearings themselves, viewers have also heard previously recorded testimony from several members of Trump’s campaign team and former administration officials, including those who worked in his White House.
As political scientist Dan Drezner joked the other day, “For a committee that Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan have labeled as ‘partisan,’ they’re sure doing a good job of getting lots of Republicans to go on the record about Trump’s felonies.” In fairness, at least some of the witnesses are not obvious partisans. Two weeks ago, for example, the committee heard from U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards and documentarian Nick Quested, and I have no idea what their political affiliations might be. Similarly, the panel will hear today from Shaye Moss, who served in a non-partisan role as an election worker in Georgia. It’s not obvious which party, if any, she belongs to. Regardless, taken together, to hear Trump suggest that Americans are only hearing from one side is rather ironic: We’re hearing from members of his own party. The House Jan. 6 committee is holding its fourth public hearing on Tuesday, June 21 at 1 p.m. ET. Get expert analysis in real-time on our liveblog at msnbc.com/jan6hearings.
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."
Latest Post
Recommended
