Tuesday’s testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aid to Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump’s last chief of staff, drew attention back to the Jan. 6 committee in a striking finale of the first part of the hearings, which are expected to close in July. be resumed .
Mrs. Hutchinson’s testimony certainly came as a surprise and produced shocking and consequential revelations, but it was not the only one. The hearings are full of them.
What blockbusters add to the story
Committee members said they would not play accuser before starting. That bit of deception has heightened the surprise of what might plausibly be considered the commission’s prosecution approach against the former president.
The committee has repeatedly referred to criminal law and did so again with Ms Hutchinson’s testimony. For example, she recounted a conversation with White House counsel Pat Cipollone urging her to make sure Trump doesn’t go to the Capitol, fearing that if he did go it would lead to “charges of every crime imaginable.” ‘.
At each hearing, the committee has skilfully built on a factual foundation. Earlier it emerged that Mr Trump was repeatedly informed that he had lost the election; he was also told it might be illegal to attack the election results, but he did it anyway. Whatever he believed about winning or losing an election, he couldn’t legally conspire to find 11,780 votes that didn’t exist, falsify false election certificates, or provoke violence. Indeed, previous hearings have focused on and strengthened cases for two possible crimes: solicitation of voter fraud (in a case in the state of Georgia) and conspiracy to fabricate election certificates (which federal authorities appear to be pursuing).
We already knew that Mr. Trump refused to perform for 187 minutes to disperse the crowd. With Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, we heard more evidence that he urged the mob to attack Vice President Mike Pence. (While rioters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Trump tweeted that Mr. Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.”
She provided new information about various threats of violence in the days leading up to January 6. The Secret Service warned about it and they were discussed in the White House. Ms. Hutchinson testified that she was “near a conversation” she overheard in which Mr. Trump said he didn’t care “that they have guns. They are not here to hurt me. Get the f-ing warehouses out. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Get the f-ing mags out.” (Mags, or magnetometers or metal detectors, were used to screen attendees for weapons before entering the January 6 rally at the White House.)
She confirmed reports of Mr Trump’s hostility towards his vice president during the riots. Ms. Hutchinson recalled a conversation about Mr. Trump between Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Meadows: “I remember Pat saying something along the lines of, ‘Mark, we need to do something more. They are literally demanding that the vice president be hanged.” And Mark had responded along the lines of, “You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.’ To which Pat said something like, ‘This is fucking crazy.’”
Is there enough evidence for an inflammatory conspiracy criminal case involving Mr Trump’s actions and inaction on January 6, such as those against the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and their leaders? The evidence is strong, but it is not yet sufficient to overcome the very high bar of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Trump agreed with the rioters to attack the Capitol. But the new testimony proves other possible crimes, such as obstruction of Congress, with Mr Trump’s role in the violence being the culmination of that plan.
A rebel?
The evidence gathered, capped by Ms. Hutchison’s testimony, will again raise another potential legal obstacle for Mr. Trump: disqualification from future federal office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Known as the disqualification clause, this provision applies to anyone who has taken an oath to support the Constitution and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or “gave aid or comfort to its enemies.”
We have seen this challenge against others – such as Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina – who have been accused of insurrection. Challenging the 14th Amendment against Mr. Trump will be as simple as voters petitioning election officials in any state he wants to run for to bar him from the primary or general election vote on the grounds that he is constitutionally unconstitutional. has been excluded because of his role in the uprising. As with the Greene and Cawthorn cases, the challenges would certainly end up in court. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Greene Cawthorn was allowed to run for office, but the cases set important precedents, including the willingness of election officials and courts to consider the issue.
Plus, those cases didn’t have that much evidence, and more are likely to follow. The effort to bar Mr Trump from participating will be strengthened if the committee formally finds in its final report that he was a 14th Amendment insurgent, and even more so if those findings are passed by the full House.
Scholars disagree on how and in which scenarios Section 3 applies. For example, some point to a antebellum case to suggest it cannot be carried out without congressional legislation. Other experts argue that no such requirement exists. After Tuesday, it seems likely that these and many other questions will be worked out by the courts.
cliffhangers and villains
Each hearing has saved a surprise for the end. Last Thursday’s one, for example, ended with the revelations that six members of Congress had asked for a presidential pardon. On Tuesday, it were screenshots, presented by Representative Liz Cheney, of messages believed to have been sent by Trump supporters to witnesses, insinuating that Mr. Trump was watching and “reading transcripts” and “know that you are loyal.” They showed possible manipulation by witnesses and possible obstruction of justice.
The hearings have very gradually introduced villains, targeting first Mr Trump and then legal aides for his attempted coup, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. On Tuesday we met a fourth, Mr. Meadows. That’s part of how the committee has been so smart; it has slowly expanded the cast of characters.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the hearings seem to be having an impact. That’s what polls suggest: In one, three-quarters of voters had heard or read about the survey, and 60 percent supported it, including a third of Republicans. In another case, 58 percent of Americans believed the former president should be charged with crimes related to his actions on and before Jan. 6. That’s six percentage points more than before the hearings began, and includes nearly 20 percent of Republicans.
Maybe it’s because the hearings captured the spirit of the moment. Just as the Watergate hearings, the 9/11 Commission hearings, and other congressional proceedings were artifacts of their time, these hearings are structured to fit neatly into our streaming era. Think of it as TikTok Watergate. Mrs. Hutchinson just became the face of it.
norman Eisen served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump’s first impeachment.