Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public?

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) On Thursday the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will open the first of eight hearings, marking the turning point when “one of the single most important congressional investigations in history”, as the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney billed it, will finally go public.

It will be the culmination of almost a year of intensive activity that, aside from a succession of leaks, has largely been conducted in private. More than 1,000 people have been called for depositions and interviews to cast light on the events of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in answer to Donald Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to prevent Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

The committee has collected 125,000 documents, pursued almost 500 leads through its confidential tip line. It has examined text messages between Trump’s closest advisers and family members discussing how to keep the defeated president in power; reviewed memos from conservative lawyers laying out a roadmap to an electoral coup; and listened to recorded conversations in which top Republicans revealed their true feelings about Trump’s actions “inciting people” to attack the heart of US democracy.

Now the nine-member committee, Cheney included, have a different – and arguably more difficult – job to do. They must let the American people into their deliberations, share with them key facts and exhibits, grill witnesses in front of them, and through it all begin to build a compelling narrative of how ferociously Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election – and how close he came to succeeding.

“It’s important that we tell the American public, to the best we are able, exactly what happened,” said Zoe Lofgren, a congresswoman from California who is among the seven Democratic members of the committee. “The public need to understand the stakes for our system of government, and we need to devise potential changes in legislation or procedures to protect ourselves in future.” .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/05/us-capitol-attack-televised-hearing-january-6

[NoRethugFriends]

1. Yes. And it will be ignored.

[Sneederbunk]

2. You can lead a horse to water, etc. etc.

[rsdsharp]

3. Sadly, this isn't 1973. Half the country won't ever see these hearings,

and they’ll be told by Fox that everything they might somehow hear about them is false.

[kentuck]

4. The people that most need to see the hearings will choose to skip them?

It should be advertised as a patriotic act.

It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, if you love Trump and hate Biden, or vice-versa, it is something everyone should commit to do as an American.

The survival of your country may depend on what you know and don't know about the attack upon our Capitol?

Why did it happen? Was it planned or did it just happen?

Was there really an attempt to over-throw an election? Was it a legitimate attempt to save our country from an illegitimate election? Or was it something else? Every American should want to know.

[uponit7771]

5. Not unless there's legal follow up, "they did something illegal" is a known known among the sane ...

... consequences for the illegality is what needs to happen next.

[AngryOldDem]

6. Not as long as there are "news" outlets telling people what they want to hear...

…or just ignoring things altogether.

This is when I miss the days of just three major networks. With the Ervin and Rodino hearings, they were televised on ABC, NBC, and CBS all day (at first; later coverage was alternated), with useful but limited talking head analysis throughout and a comprehensive summary at the end of the day.

This was back when there was no social media echo chambers, either.

Now people have been conditioned to think that anything outside those echo chambers are lies. Hard to break through that.

That’s why I’m generally pessimistic about these hearings making much difference and about our survival as a republic as a whole.