VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
What the January 6 Committee Might Have Been
June 16, 2022

A real investigation would have ignited argumentation, cross-examination, and disagreements— the sort of give-and-take for which congressional committees are famous. In contrast, the January 6 show trial features no dissenting views. Its subtext was right out of the Soviet minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria’s credo: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. <Its slick Hollywood-produced optics demonstrate that the committee has no interest in inconvenient facts. Why did a Capitol officer lethally shoot a petite unarmed woman entering a Capitol window? And why was the officer’s identity and, indeed all information about his record, withheld from the public? READ MORE

REAL CLEAR POLITICS Charles Lipson: November 3, January 6, and Mounting Threats to Democracy So far, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 has presented no evidence that Trump was directly connected to the mob’s invasion of the Capitol Building. That failure is important. But what they have shown is also important. Their witnesses have made it clear that the angry crowd, assembled on the National Mall at Trump’s invitation, was incited by the president’s rousing speech and proceeded to march to the Capitol, as he implored them to do.