Last Thursday evening, the US House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol held a rare prime-time, nationally-televised hearing designed to publicize its findings to date and further document what it clearly sees as culpability on the part of former Donald Trump for the terrible events of that day. It was the first of a planned six such televised hearings over the next 5 weeks.
The hearing largely involved speeches by the Democratic Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, and the Republican ranking member of the committee, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, playing of video of events on that day, and the testimony of several witnesses, including a female Capitol Police officer who was knocked unconscious by rioters during the event.
Unsurprisingly, reactions to the hearing, and it’s highly-produced, “made-for-tv” presentation, varied largely along partisan and ideological lines. Liberals and Democrats largely praised the hearing as a necessary vehicle to pursue the truth of what caused the riots, particularly if President Trump was involved in any pre-riot coordination or planning, while many conservatives and Republicans questioned whether anything really new had been produced, and questioned whether this was strictly an exercise to help punish Republicans ahead of the November mid-term elections.
Former mayor of St. Charles, Ray Rogina, and former Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Pat Crimmins, discussed their view of the hearings for an upcoming episode of their podcast Just a Coupla Guys.
Crimmins began by playing a recording of Cheney’s dramatic chastisement of certain of her fellow Republicans who have downplayed the riots and the former President’s culpability therefor.
“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Crimmins went on to describe his emotions on January 6 as he watched the violence unfold.
“I don’t know how you felt about January 6th, Ray, as it was happening, but as it was happening live I felt several emotions. I was ashamed. I was scared. At the end of the day, I wasn’t necessarily fearful of a coup, but I didn’t really understand the depth of what was happening at the time. I didn’t understand.
“I don’t know what’s happened to this country in terms of the divisions, but if anybody was confused or in any way denying divisions within this country, January 6th sure showed the world that America is at a different place.”
Rogina concurred.
“So Pat, to your point of January 6th itself, I thought last night’s presentation manifested the adjectives that you described. Those were there as far as I’m concerned, too.
“Some things that people [are saying], ‘they’re not showing us anything that we don’t know already,’ I’m not sure about that. For example, the way it was presented last night with the times and the sequential presentation of events was very interesting to me, that’s number one. Number two was the fact that, and I don’t know how many people picked up on this, for the first time I saw children marching into the Capitol. Some individuals had the nerve, the gall, if you will, to bring their small children on a March to the Capitol. Now, if we’re just marching, protesting peacefully out in front, that’s not a problem to me, but to bring children into the Capitol like this to me was sick.”
Both Crimmins and Rogina compared the January 6 inquiry to Watergate, with former President Trump coming off much worse than former President Nixon in their eyes.
“I would say this, that Donald Trump is Richard Nixon times a trillion, on steroids,” Crimmins said. “The comparison between the two is not even something that you can really have a cogent conversation about. Richard Nixon was interested in Richard Nixon, but he was always America first. I believe that to this day, that he did believe in the concept of democracy. He did give deference to Congress.
“He fought them. He went to the courts, but when the court ruled, he turned over the tapes. He did what the court ordered. There was a little 18 minute gap, but, ordinarily he did what was ordered. He abided by the system.
“Donald Trump is the exact opposite. He has shown that his entire career. Let’s just sue. Let’s just go scorched earth. Let’s fight on everything. Let’s fight everybody on everything. And that’s exactly what he has done in his life. And that’s what he’s doing here today.”
Rogina asked citizens to keep an open mind about the hearings.
“I have friends on both sides of the aisle, so to speak, and I’ve always argued that I’m a conservative Democrat. And I would say to everyone, let the hearings play themselves out. Look again at the facts, ask yourself the question, ‘is democracy on the line here?’ And we go from there.
“My bottom line is after to your earlier, very nice analysis of the fact that there’s all these facts being put on the table, the Justice Department has an obligation then to take the facts and decide, do we, or do we not move forward? Do we prosecute? Do we not prosecute? Whether it’s the former president, whether it’s any of the president’s men and women, and we’ll go from there.”
Hear the entire discussion on the Just A Coupla Guys podcast this Friday (Thursday for patrons).
