WASHINGTON — Before Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary, even opened her mouth on Thursday to testify before the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the House Republican Conference attacked her on Twitter as a “liar” and a “pawn” of the Democrats.
The group made no mention of the man sitting next to her, Matthew Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser, who also attended to issue a scathing indictment against President Donald J. Trump’s conduct on the day of the riots. . Nor did Mr Trump himself mention Mr Pottinger when he lashed out hours later with a statement calling Ms Matthews a fame seeker who “clearly lied.”
The contrast highlighted how in a series of revealing hearings that focused on issues such as democracy, the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, another less discussed theme emerged: the gender dynamics which was a powerful undercurrent.
In the course of exposing Mr Trump’s elaborate bid to nullify the 2020 election, the House committee has relied on the accounts of several women who came forward to tell their stories publicly. Their statements, and the attacks that followed, made it clear that women often still pay a higher price than men for speaking out.
Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and the panel’s vice chair — a woman who herself has suffered severely from her urging to publicly condemn Mr Trump’s conduct — has been explicit about the role of gender in the proceedings. She has positioned herself as the champion of the women who have agreed to testify in person, comparing them favorably to the many men who have refused to do so.
At the committee primetime hearing on ThursdayMrs. Cheney was wearing a white coat, the color of the women’s suffrage movement. She invoked Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to serve as Britain’s Prime Minister, and American women’s struggle to secure the right to vote, as she described the women who had appeared in public during the panel’s investigation. as “an inspiration to American women and American girls.”
As a result, as the commission unfolds the story of the January 6th attack—playing footage of a predominantly male mob destroying the Capitol in the name of Mr. Trump, with the president watching supportively from the West Wing—many of the witnesses most prominent are women, with Mrs. Cheney as their defender.
It’s a remarkable strategy by Ms. Cheney, a tough and aggressive conservative who throughout her career has tried to avoid being viewed through the lens of gender.
Key Revelations from the January 6 Hearings
It comes as the Republican Party has done its best to diversify and expand its appeal among female voters, a group polls have shown. a soft spot for Mr. Trump in 2020 and has only drifted away from him ever since. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that: six out of ten women believed that Mr Trump’s actions after the 2020 election threatened democracy, while men were almost equally divided, with 48 percent holding that opinion and 45 percent saying he was simply exercising his rights.
Ms. Cheney was the top Republican woman on Capitol Hill last year when she broke with her party after the riots and proclaimed Mr. Trump and his election lies, voting to impeach him for inciting insurgency. Within months she was ousted as the No. 3 Republican in the House, and she is now at risk of losing her seat in Wyoming because she… faces a challenging primaries next month against a Trump-backed opponent.
It was hard not to hear parallels as Ms. Cheney described on Thursday how Ms. Hutchinson, the 26-year-old former White House aide turned critical public witness, deliberately exposed herself to harsh criticism from former colleagues. Ms. Cheney said Ms. Hutchinson “knew all along that she would be attacked by President Trump and by the 50-, 60- and 70-year-old men who hide behind executive privileges.”
“But like our witnesses today, she has courage and she did it anyway,” Ms Cheney added.
After Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, Mr Trump dismissed her as “this girl” who made up stories in an interview with Newsmax. “She’s in serious trouble,” he said. “Mental problems.”
Amanda Carpenter, a former adviser to Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, both Republicans, said it was remarkable to see a conservative woman draw attention to gender dynamics.
“I know how hard it is for these women under these circumstances,” said Ms. Carpenter. “I can imagine it means a lot to the women who are being targeted. It means a lot to me to watch it.”
The House Republican Conference Twitter attack on Ms. Matthews, who works as a Republican aide to the House, was quickly removed. But Trump’s targeting of her and Ms. Hutchinson was consistent with the way the former president has often publicly treated women who challenge him and criticize them in personal terms designed to question their credibility, sanity and self-esteem.
Trump’s allies like to describe him as an equal-opportunity counter striker who would attack anyone who thwarted him. But over the years he has handpicked female antagonists with particular ferocity, including TV personalities Mika Brzezinski and Megyn Kelly, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors. His allies, many of them seeking his approval, have mimicked his behavior.
In Ms. Hutchinson’s case, one person close to her said his stories shopped to Trump-friendly media outlets who personally defamed her.
Garrett Ziegler, a junior aide in the Trump White House, took a misogynistic rant on a livestream last week after a Jan. 6 committee interview in which he repeatedly declined to answer questions. In the tirade, he used sexist statements against his former female colleagues who participated in the investigation.
“Pat Cipollone, Bill Barr, Marc Short, they say the same thing, but you’re attacking the young women,” said former Virginia Representative Barbara Comstock, a Republican who has been branded a “RINO loser” by Trump in the past. for Republican in name.
Ms. Comstock referred to the former White House attorney, former attorney general and former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence — all of whom gave behind closed door testimony to the commission painting Mr. Trump in an unflattering light.
“This is a cartridge,” said Mrs. Comstock, standing close to Mrs. Cheney. “The president is doing this, and this is intentional.”
Some male witnesses have also faced professional repercussions and public reprimands for their outspokenness. Arizona House speaker and Republican, Rusty Bowers, was censored by his state’s Republican Party after he his emotional testimony for the committee on January 6. mr. Bowers, who is running for reelection, told NBC News that it would take “a miracle” to survive politically.
And Mr. Barr, who as Attorney General told Mr. Trump directly that his allegations of voter fraud were unfounded, echoed sentiment about the reality of cooperation.
“I get a lot of vitriol from the right,” Mr Barr said in a brief interview.
But while male witnesses have received some criticism from the right – in the case of Mr. Cipollone, the eldest son of Mr. Trump, Donald Trump Jr. the same volume or intensity, or of the same degree of personal distress, as that against Mrs. Hutchinson in particular.
Mr. Trump’s allies insist they are deeply concerned about what Ms. Hutchinson told the committee. They have raised specific issues of fact in her testimony, capitalizing on a discrepancy between her story and that of Eric Herschmann, a former White House attorney. Both told the panel that they authored a handwritten note shown during one of the hearings with instructions for what the president should tell the rioters on Jan. 6.
An attempt has also been made to undermine the veracity of some of the most explosive parts of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony. Secret Service officials, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, disputed a scene where Mrs. Hutchinson said she told him in which Mr. Trump allegedly grabbed a Secret Service agent and jumped at the wheel of the SUV he was driving when he demanded to be driven to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
But the speed of the Twitter attack on Ms. Matthews was remarkable, as it came from her own colleagues. The Twitter account for the House Republican Conference that picked her is run by two former Trump campaign operatives.
Led by New York Representative Elise Stefanik, who replaced Ms. Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican, the Twitter account took an aggressive tone during the hearings — intended to please the proverbial “audience of one.”