The Problem with the January 6th Committee

Nancy Pelosi naming the members of the January 6th committee. Source: CBS News

The congressional investigation into the Capitol riot on January 6th is intensifying. Last week, Congress announced that former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and former chief of staff Mark Meadows had been subpoenaed. The committee is reviewing thousands of pieces of evidence and collecting testimony from dozens of witnesses. One indication of the seriousness of the hearings has been the hyperbole used by Republicans to oppose it. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened any company that went along with the committee’s subpoenas, remarking that “a Republican majority will not forget” which companies hand over records. Meanwhile, nearly every Republican refused to serve on the committee or seriously engage with its goals.

The idea of a televised congressional investigation into the attempted Trump coup should be transfixing America like earlier significant hearings. It should be appointment viewing like the 2017 James Comey testimony (which had nearly twenty million viewers) or the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh hearings. However, these hearings have been received much differently than those earlier blockbusters. The greater public has basically ignored the proceedings, less from a lack of revulsion about the January 6th riot than from the predetermined nature of the committee’s outcome.

The January 6th committee is performing the admirable task of investigating the awful events that transpired that day. It is interviewing many of the people responsible for the carnage, some of whom have avoided official scrutiny over the past five years. Connecting the dots and interviewing those responsible could help the public learn more about Republican activity leading up to that noxious event. It may also help fuel other investigations, potentially from law enforcement. If Congress does not find a crime in the events that day, it can always refer an individual for prosecution if they are caught lying under oath.

But throughout the proceedings there is one nagging question: what exactly will be done? What is the goal of Democrats besides laying out facts and presenting a coherent narrative? On that end, the committee is likely to fail. There is no evidence that Democrats have the political will necessary to pursue members of Congress for transgressions related to that day. Despite all of their complaining about Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert, there is virtual certainty that even these extreme members of Congress will avoid expulsion. Congress almost never punishes its own. The number of members expelled or even censured in the past 200 years is laughably small. Only five representatives have ever been expelled and only one senator has ever been expelled outside of the context of the Civil War. The most liberal voices in the party have avoided comment, signaling that they are not convinced the committee will do much to curb extremism in the legislative branch.

Another clue to the general ineffectiveness that will likely characterize the committee’s work has been Congress’s attitude towards the presidency now that Joe Biden is in charge. There has been no general accountability for the office of president that had been promised numerous times over the previous four years. In 2016, Democrats howled that Donald Trump was running for president without releasing his tax returns. They complained about his failure to divest from his businesses while in office. Democrats also promised to rewrite ethics laws so that they had enforcement mechanisms behind them, and so presidential advisors like Kellyanne Conway could not ignore them with impunity. But after Biden’s election, the will for such reforms evaporated. Democratic reformers could not gain attention for their plans or any sort of sustained drive from voters and political leaders. There were too many cultural touchstones to comment on and tenets of social legislation to fight over. Ethics became much less important to the Democratic agenda with Donald Trump out of power and a Democrat in the White House.

Leaders in government positions seem likely to prove themselves incapable of delivering the reckoning on January 6th that many Americans want. There is simply not the momentum to punish powerful people in society for events that happened nearly nine months ago. The general apathy surrounding this failed insurrection should point to a fundamental flaw in our attention spans, our appetite towards news, and the expectations that we set for our political leaders in the 21st century. Our fragmented news environment has led to a situation where one political party can actively support a riot in the halls of power and, with the right supporters and a little luck, get away with it.