Advocacy Groups Call Attention to Significant Legal Questions at January 6 Hearings
June 08, 2022
Almost a year and a half after a mob stormed the Capitol to prevent certification of the results of the 2020 election, the January 6 House Select Committee investigating the attack will hold its first in a series of public hearings on Thursday, June 9.
In advance of the hearing, the nonpartisan group Defend Democracy Project held a press briefing yesterday where panelists discussed what is at stake in these hearings and considered the current challenges facing representative democracy in the United States.
Former Alabama Senator Doug Jones, a distinguished senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, said the hearings will be a defining moment for the country. “What happened on, and leading up to, January 6 was literally an assault on our country,” Jones said. “These hearings will allow Congress to lay out the case to the American people and show how fragile our democracy actually is, and that the threat is ongoing and, in some ways, is growing.”
Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, presented polling data from April showing that respondents took the events of January 6 seriously and have followed the subsequent congressional investigation and action. An overwhelming majority perceived the incident as criminal and were concerned about the possibility of future incidents, Lake said.
“A solid majority of voters support punishments for members of Congress or candidates who encouraged and supported the attack on January 6, including barring them from running for office in the future and prosecuting them for crimes today,” said Lake.
Norman Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, co-authored a recent study, “Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality,” which examined the question of criminality in greater detail, identifying three different potential criminal theories he expects the hearings would address.
“First, did President Donald Trump and those around him criminally obstruct a congressional proceeding on January 6? Second, did they conspire to defraud the United States in their activities in and around the events of that day and in the long runup to January 6? And third, were there also state crimes?” Eisen said.
Eisen believes “there is substantial evidence that those federal statutes and state statutes were violated,” and he expects that the introduction of new evidence and witnesses in the course of the hearings might reveal additional potential criminal violations.
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, has been involved with the Not Above the Law coalition organizing more than a hundred events at which concerned citizens will gather to watch the upcoming hearings.
“We know how critical it is that the American public sees and understands these hearings,” Gilbert said. “We have to ensure that those in power understand how much interest there is, how much attention there is to the findings and next steps that will flow from them.”
Esosa Osa, deputy executive director of Fair Fight Action, said that in the aftermath of the events of January 6, politicians leveraged narratives undermining the legitimacy of elections to enact voting restrictions that damage our democracy, often to the disadvantage of minority groups. “As these critical hearings begin to speak truth, seek justice, [and] seek accountability for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, we have to keep in mind that our work protecting democracy is far from over,” she said.
Information regarding the House Select Committee’s investigation, including live streams of hearings, is available at january6th.house.gov.
