January 6th Committee turns a corner
Smart politicians know that if they’re not going to be able to meet the public’s expectations on something, they have to find a way to tamp down those expectations in advance. The only time smart politicians try to ramp up the public’s expectations in advance is if they know they’re going to be able to exceed even the highest of expectations.
By now we can all acknowledge that the January 6th Committee consists of smart and savvy politicians. So even as various committee members have used various public appearances over the past few days to ramp up the public’s expectations for this Wednesday’s public hearing, it’s becoming pretty clear that the hearing is going to be nothing short of explosive.
So what’s the hype about? Liz Cheney just said that the committee has obtained the better part of a million Secret Service communications from on or around January 6th. That’s a stunning amount of data, and suggests that while certain Secret Service personnel are famously stonewalling, the vast majority of the Secret Service has been cooperating. But this would seem to be just the beginning.
Various committee members have said that Wednesday’s hearing will not be the final public hearing. Yet given the timing, we’re clearly getting close to the end – and the end has to be all about Donald Trump. So are some of these January 6th Secret Service communications with Trump and his henchmen? We’re about to find out.
Separately we’ve got committee member Jamie Raskin repeating the assertion that January 6th was a premeditated attack on American democracy, a clear sign that we’ll see more evidence on this front during Wednesday’s hearing. And again, given the timing, we expect this evidence to tie directly back to Donald Trump. In any case, the committee has clearly turned a corner, and is ready to tell us all about it.
