How the January 6th Committee got the job done

When the Senate voted against a January 6th commission back in 2021, we kept hearing from large chunks of the media and pundit class about how there would be no congressional January 6th investigation, even though it was obvious at the time that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would end up appointing a committee.

Once that committee was appointed, we kept hearing about how it would never subpoena anyone. When that proved false, we then started hearing about how it would never refer anyone for contempt. Then we had to hear about how it would never find any key cooperating witnesses, because Trump’s people would remain loyal to him “no matter what.” And when that proved false, we then had to hear about how the committee was supposedly going to run out of time to finish the job – as if the committee members were somehow too stupid to look at a calendar and figure out when the midterms were.

Now that the January 6th Committee has made criminal referrals today against Donald Trump and others, along with a lengthy report that would ensure their indictment even if the DOJ didn’t already have a grand jury in the process of indicting Trump for these kinds of crimes, it seems obvious in hindsight that we were always going to get to this point. And it was in fact obvious all along. The committee’s relentless approach was always going to chip away at the coverup, and get enough witnesses to talk about what Trump really did. There wasn’t going to be an outcome that was much different than the one we saw today.

But it is worth taking a moment to look back at just how incredibly wrong most of the media and pundit class was about the January 6th Committee, every step of the way, from start to finish. It’s also worth asking how much damage these doomsday pundits did to the January 6th Committee’s public standing, as they tried to chip away at the committee’s credibility every step of the way.

In the end, all the committee had to do was follow good old fashioned investigative techniques like targeting lower level witnesses first, and using their testimony to pressure higher level witnesses into giving their own accounts, eventually leaving the fingers all pointed at Trump himself. It takes a lot of time and work, but it’s the only way these things succeed.

In fact, the January 6th Committee succeeded specifically by not doing any of the things that the doomsday pundits demanded they do. The committee didn’t cut corners and rush the process. The committee didn’t target the highest level witnesses first. These would have been foolish mistakes. But the committee proved too smart and savvy to listen to the gibberish demands of the folks on Twitter who were only ever pandering to audiences’ sense of outrage. The committee got the job done by doing the job right.