Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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Months after halting their public hearings — temporarily it appears — the Jan. 6 committee is bouncing around the idea that the person at the heart of the entire production should be invited to appear before what has become his board of accusers.
As first reported by CNN, members of the committee will meet Tuesday with the primary goal of hashing out whether to invite an in-person appearance from former President Donald Trump as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.
“Just speaking for myself, I would like to hear from both of them,” CNN quoted committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) as saying. “Whether we actually will is a separate question.”
Reuters reported last month that Pence was at least open to the idea of testifying, but Trump has always given the committee little more than scorn.
That doesn’t mean Trump would skip the opportunity to appear — not even his most ardent critic would accuse him of dodging the spotlight — but the former president has given no indication that he has any interest in participating in what has been a mostly one-sided exploration — or a charade in the eyes of many — of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
It is almost certain that the committee will choose to invite both Trump and Pence, but CNN reveals that Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wants Trump’s participation to be on the committee’s terms.
Those terms have always been predicated on proving Trump was culpable for the riot that occurred at the Capitol in order to derail Trump’s expected push for a second term come 2024.
According to CNN, the committee members are working closely with their investigation team to “assess what makes the most sense” as they seek to “weave a coherent narrative” about Trump.
However, Democrats insist that they are not coordinating with the Department of Justice. The investigators to which the committee members refer, according to Democrats, are those investigators working for the committee as opposed to employees of the FBI or DOJ.
“I mean, the country now understands all of the essential elements of the plot to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and install Donald Trump as president for another four years,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told CNN. “There has been … a lot of developments in terms of the Department of Justice and its own investigations, but of course, that’s on a separate track from us.”
Another certainty in the equation is that whatever the committee elects to do will be designed to attract a good rating on television, something the committee has failed to even approach to this point in any demographic under the age of 55, despite broadcasts that aired in prime time on every major network, PBS, and nearly every cable news network simultaneously.
Even though numerous indicators show that the committee’s work has been ineffective, and in some cases counterproductive, the hearings have and will continue to proceed in a manner more befitting a drama.
If the first series of hearings were Season 1, the return of the hearings this fall would be Season 2 and the Trump-Pence duo represents the biggest names the committee could hope to market to a would-be television audience.
The committee has also requested the participation of Newt Gingrich, who committee members say spread false information about the 2020 presidential election.