House January 6th Select Committee Gains Traction - Horowitz

House January 6th Select Committee Gains Traction - Horowitz

Most of the media coverage of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has centered on the difficulty in getting prominent figures, including Steve Bannon, former Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and top Trump justice department official, Jeffrey Clark, to testify. For the majority of the public, who are only following the work of the committee casually--if at all--the impression left was of a largely stymied investigation, struggling to establish its footing and to gather the information needed to substantially advance our knowledge of the developments leading up to January 6 and the events on the day itself.

Recognizing that it was important to combat this misleading narrative, the leaders of the House select committee used last week’s meeting, called for the purpose of voting to recommend that Mark Meadows be held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear for a deposition in front of the committee, to effectively communicate the impressive volume of new information the committee had already gathered and to provide some juicy tidbits that guaranteed widespread media coverage.   The entirety of the meeting was aired by CNN and MSNBC, soundbites from the meeting received prominent play on other networks, and it generated a number of front page and top of website articles in major national newspapers.

Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chair of the committee, emphasized that Meadows and the few others who were not cooperating were very much the exception, proclaiming that more than 250 people had already been interviewed by the committee, most of whom did so voluntarily. He also detailed the scale of documents already in the committee’s possession, including about 9,000 documents turn over by Meadows himself before he changed his mind and decided to withdraw is cooperation.

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Drawing on the materials provided by Meadows, January 6 committee vice-chair, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) provided the most provocative and as a result the most covered soundbites.  Cheney read aloud messages texted to Meadows on the afternoon of January 6 from some of the former president’s strongest supporters, including his own son and Fox News hosts, all saying with a clear sense of the urgency and alarm that afternoon evoked for anyone watching it unfold, that the former president needed to directly and strongly tell his supporters who were invading the Capitol to stop it right away and go home. In one of the texts read by Cheney, Donald Trump Jr, for example, said, “We need an Oval address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”  Similarly, Fox News prime time host Laura Ingraham in a text read by the congresswoman, and as abbreviated by The New York Times said, “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home… this is hurting all of us … he is destroying his legacy.”  Ingraham’s message was echoed in texts sent by her Fox colleagues, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade.

As I’m sure the media-savvy Cheney anticipated, including the texts of the Fox News hosts extended the coverage of the committee hearing as the contrast between what they said to Meadows on January 6 itself and their general minimizing of the insurrection over the past year was chewed over in television shows and news articles.   The blowback forced both Hannity and Ingraham to respond on their own programs, the following night, which created further news hooks.

The political effectiveness of last week’s committee meeting and other texts supplied by the committee that begin to unveil the role of congressional supporters of President Trump, such as Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), in the events leading up to January 6 can be seen by the favorable comments made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “I think the fact-finding is interesting; we’re all going to be watching it. It was a horrendous event, and I think what they are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know,” McConnell said in his second positive public mention of the January 6 committee last week.  Another telling indicator is the silence last week of most of Donald Trump’s reflexive defenders in the House, despite aggressive efforts by reporters to get them to respond to the revelations by the select committee.

The committee is planning a series of hearings next year—all of which are likely to be televised ---as well as the issuance of what promises to be a detailed, comprehensive report, which will include recommendations for preventing the events leading up to January 6 and of the day itself from ever happening again. Given Mr. Trump’s and his allies continuing efforts to emphasize the “Big Lie,” change state election laws to make it easier for partisan state legislatures to overturn presidential election results, and downplay January 6—a campaign that poses a “clear and present” danger to our democracy, the work of the House select committee is nothing less than  the work of safeguarding our democracy.

“The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!” falsely asserted the former president.  The House select committee is beginning to demonstrate that it will answer the former president’s continuing disgraceful disinformation efforts by uncovering and powerfully presenting the “truth” to the American people.  And in this case, to paraphrase the biblical phrase, ‘the truth will set us free.”

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.