Daily Reading #1: The Capitol-riot hearings: High time for prime time

The essence of what happened on January 6th 2021 is well-known, if still shocking to recall. A mob stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC, in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Four people in the crowd died that day, and five police officers in its aftermath. Members of Congress had to be rushed to a secure location in a basement. Rioters erected a mock gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence”. And the man who inspired all this was the president himself, who had urged his followers to help overturn his election defeat. As the Republicans’ leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, told the Senate a few weeks later, Donald Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for these events: “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.”

So what is the point of the public hearings of the House committee probing the insurrection due to start on June 9th? From Thursday’s prime-time political theatre to half a dozen sessions that will follow before a final report in September, the coverage will be viewed very differently on either side of a polarised country. Commentators on the right will belittle it all as a witch hunt. And after November’s mid-term elections, in which the Republicans look likely to win control of the House, they can be counted on to bury the matter.

Yet that ticking clock gives an urgency to the proceedings, which matter profoundly, for three reasons. One flows from the basic workings of democracy: institutions must do their job. It is the task of Congress to probe how an assault on the Capitol happened and conclude what lessons can be learned. Its nine-member committee—seven Democrats and two principled Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger—has gone about it in a commendably thorough, bipartisan way, despite much resistance. On June 3rd the Department of Justice charged Peter Navarro, a former economic adviser to Mr Trump, for refusing to co-operate with the committee (though it strangely decided not to act against Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff at the time of the riot, despite similar obstructionism).

Second, though the core of the story is known, many vital details are not—especially concerning the extent of the coup’s planning and how directly the president was involved. Some revealing details, such as text messages from Mr Trump’s family to Mr Meadows urging him to persuade his boss to stop the riot, have dribbled out in the course of the committee’s work so far. More can be expected in the public hearings, given that they will draw on information gleaned from more than 1,000 depositions and interviews and over 140,000 documents.

A flow of fresh facts about the depth of plotting would reinforce the third reason why these hearings are important: the threat is not over. True, America’s democracy prevailed despite the attack. Members of Congress were eventually able to go back into the chamber and they duly certified the election (albeit that, despite the violence that had occurred that day, 138 Republican House members still voted to reject the results in Pennsylvania). Mr Biden became president. But even now 60% of Republicans believe Mr Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. And the party has decided that the insurrection was not serious enough to break with Mr Trump, leaving him the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024. If Republicans select him, Mr McConnell says he will back him.

Astonishing as it may seem, given what is already known about his efforts to thwart the will of the electorate, let alone what may be discovered, Mr Trump could well win back the presidency legitimately. In case he does not, his supporters are striving to put in place officials who may make a future challenge to the voters’ verdict succeed. The committee’s work, including the public hearings, is a vital part of the eternal vigilance that, more than ever, is needed to defend American democracy.

2021 年 1 月 6 日发生的事情的本质是众所周知的，如果回忆起来仍然令人震惊。一群暴徒冲进华盛顿特区的国会大厦，试图阻止国会认证乔 - 拜登的选举胜利。当天，人群中有 4 人死亡，5 名警察在事后死亡。国会议员不得不被紧急送往地下室的一个安全地点。骚乱者搭建了一个模拟绞架，并高呼 "绞死迈克 - 彭斯"。而激发这一切的人就是总统本人，他曾敦促他的追随者帮助推翻他的选举失败。正如共和党在参议院的领导人米奇 - 麦康奈尔几周后告诉参议院的那样，唐纳德 - 特朗普对这些事件 "实际上和道德上都有责任"。"冲进这座大楼的人认为他们是按照他们的总统的意愿和指示行事。"

那么，将于 6 月 9 日开始的众议院委员会调查叛乱的公开听证会的意义何在？从周四的黄金时段的政治戏剧到随后的半打会议，再到 9 月的最终报告，在这个两极分化的国家里，人们对这些报道的看法会非常不同。右派的评论员会把这一切贬低为猎奇。而在 11 月的中期选举之后，共和党看起来有可能赢得对众议院的控制权，可以指望他们将此事埋葬。

然而，这个滴答作响的钟声给这个程序带来了紧迫感，它关系重大，原因有三。一个原因来自于民主的基本运作：机构必须做好自己的工作。国会的任务是调查对国会大厦的攻击是如何发生的，并总结出可以吸取的教训。其九名成员组成的委员会 -- 七名民主党人和两名有原则的共和党人利兹 - 切尼和亚当 - 金辛格 -- 以值得称道的彻底、两党合作的方式进行调查，尽管有很多阻力。6 月 3 日，司法部指控特朗普先生的前经济顾问彼得 - 纳瓦罗 (Peter Navarro) 拒绝与委员会合作（但奇怪的是，尽管有类似的阻挠行为，司法部还是决定不对骚乱发生时的白宫幕僚长马克 - 梅多斯 (Mark Meadows) 采取行动）。

第二，虽然故事的核心内容已经知道，但许多重要的细节并不清楚，特别是关于政变的计划程度以及总统如何直接参与。在委员会迄今为止的工作过程中，一些具有启发性的细节，如特朗普先生的家人给梅多斯先生的短信，敦促他劝说他的老板停止暴乱，已经流传出来。鉴于公开听证会将利用从 1000 多份证词和访谈以及 14 万多份文件中收集到的信息，可以预期会有更多的细节。

关于阴谋深度的新事实的流动将加强这些听证会重要的第三个原因：威胁并没有结束。诚然，尽管发生了袭击，美国的民主还是取得了胜利。国会议员最终能够回到会议厅，他们正式认证了选举（尽管当天发生了暴力事件，但仍有 138 名共和党众议员投票反对宾夕法尼亚州的选举结果）。拜登先生成为总统。但即使是现在，也有 60% 的共和党人相信特朗普先生的谎言，即选举被盗。而该党已经决定，叛乱还没有严重到与特朗普先生决裂的地步，让他成为 2024 年共和党提名的领跑者。如果共和党人选择他，麦康奈尔先生说他会支持他。

尽管看起来令人吃惊，但考虑到他阻挠选民意愿的努力已经为人所知，更不用说可能发现的情况，特朗普先生很可能合法地赢回总统职位。如果他不这样做，他的支持者正在努力安排一些官员，他们可能会使未来对选民裁决的挑战取得成功。委员会的工作，包括公开听证会，是捍卫美国民主比以往任何时候都更需要的永恒的警惕的重要组成部分。