The January 6 Committee Ends with a Whimper

From start to finish, the committee has been an extended exercise in empty political theater.

It takes only a few minutes to walk from the Capitol to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C. When it comes to perspectives on January 6, 2021, however, the two buildings might as well be on different planets.

That was the big takeaway from Thursday’s meeting of the House January 6 committee. Or at least, it would have been the big takeaway if the committee had permitted cross-examination, alternative perspectives, and adversarial debate — the hallmarks of a real fact-finding process. Alas, the committee is an exercise in political theater, with members all handpicked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the proceedings choreographed by Democrats. It is nominally bipartisan, but not substantively so, for it brooks no diversity of opinion on the only issue that matters: Donald Trump. When it comes to January 6, he is the center of the storm, the commander who ordered his followers to attack the Capitol.

According to the Justice Department, Trump did not order an insurrection; his “stolen election” blather was just a pretext for an attack on the government that the Oath Keepers were scheming to conduct anyway.

Hoping to end with a bang, the committee voted to do what the judges presiding over January 6 cases would not permit charged defendants to do: subpoena Trump for testimony. At this point, it is theater.

Symbolic though it may be, the issuance of the subpoena still raises a number of obvious questions.

If none of this makes sense to you, don’t worry — it’s not supposed to. The subpoena gambit was the last act of a months-long political theater. If you want the reality of an actual fact-finding process, you’ll have to take that walk from the Hill down to the courthouse.

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