Jan. 6 committee is battling against perception it’s lost momentum. But Trump isn’t out of the woods

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The hearings into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are to resume Thursday with the committee examining Donald Trump’s role in the rampage struggling to regain the offensive and with public attention diverted from the proceedings and focusing on inflation, the conflict in Ukraine and the looming midterm congressional elections.

The eight Democrats and two Republicans on the panel claim to have blockbuster testimony to reveal this week, but the committee, which has not held a public hearing for more than 11 weeks, is battling against the perception it has lost its momentum. The 50-per-cent approval rating the committee registered in a YouGov poll in July has withered away, with the latest survey, conducted at the end of last month, showing the committee’s approval rating at only 40 per cent.

That does not mean Mr. Trump is out of the woods. He is the subject of multiple investigations at federal and state levels; many of the candidates he has endorsed in highly contested congressional races are flailing if not failing; and fully half the American public believes he has some or a lot of responsibility for the Capitol riot, according to the YouGov poll.

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It is that residual sense – that the former president has a share of the blame for the violent rebellion on Capitol Hill – that is propelling the investigative committee forward against the headwinds of shifting public support and attention.

Its members have yet to decide whether to subpoena Mr. Trump or former vice-president Mike Pence or even whether to press for additional legal action against members of the Trump circle who have defied congressional subpoenas, which according to law is punishable by a fine of up to US$1,000 and imprisonment for as much as one year; two top Trump associates already have been indicted and one, Steve Bannon, has been convicted. One of those who could be targeted for a citation of contempt is Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who is primed to be House Speaker if the Republicans, as widely expected, retake control of the House of Representatives in the Nov. 8 elections.

The hearing – perhaps the committee’s final public television spectacle – was postponed amid massive destruction from Hurricane Ian. It now comes in unusually swiftly changing circumstances.

The midterm elections, with control of Congress and thus the trajectory of further proceedings growing out of the riot at the very scene of the violent episode, are less than a month away, and Mr. Trump is increasing his involvement in key campaigns with rallies and a fusillade of advertisements and personal appearances at candidate rallies. Justice Department officials believe that Mr. Trump still harbours presidential, and possibly national security, documents in his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. There are increasing signs that a U.S. attorney appointed by Mr. Trump may be on the verge of charging Hunter Biden, the President’s son, with tax evasion and with indicating on a federal gun-purchase form that he was not using illegal drugs at a time when he has avowed that he was a user of crack cocaine.

On the weekend, a new element was added to the controversies surrounding Mr. Trump: suggestions that he tried to swap documents stored in Mar-a-Lago for ones held by the National Archives involving the probe into his ties with Russia.

This week’s planned hearing will be shaped by new inquiries by the committee’s staff, including an interview with Virginia Thomas, a prominent election denier and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Committee officials have suggested it may include revelations involving Mr. Trump’s Save America political-action committee, formed days after he disputed the election results.

Six key takeaways from Jan. 6 committee’s hearings on Capitol attack

At the same time, the conviction among Republican congressional candidates that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump has hardened, not diminished. More than half of GOP nominees for House seats share that view, a possible harbinger of a counter investigation if the Republicans do return to power in January, three days before the second anniversary of the Capitol riot.

GOP nominees for the Senate in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia – all states where the Trump team contested the 2020 results – also are election deniers. An election denier, Harriet Hageman, defeated Representative Liz Cheney, a member of the Jan. 6 committee and an outspoken Trump critic, in a Republican primary this summer.

“We are living in a post-truth era as far as the Republican Party is concerned,” said former Senator Bill Cohen of Maine, who as a freshman House member of the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach a president of his own party, Richard Nixon, in 1974. “There are not enough Liz Cheneys to save the party.”

If the Republicans do assume power in the House, the subpoenas would swiftly fly in the opposite direction, with newly empowered Republican lawmakers conducting their own investigation – not of Mr. Trump’s role in stoking the rebellion but, instead, of the committee now sitting to investigate whether the former president is guilty of fomenting the uprising. The day of his conviction, Mr. Bannon criticized the Democratic-controlled committee on Fox News, saying: “I would tell the Jan. 6 staff right now: Preserve your documents, because there’s going to be a real committee” if the GOP takes control of one of the chambers of Congress.

The current committee may issue a preliminary information before the elections but does not plan to release its final report, and its recommendations, until late in the year, some time after the elections. By that time, Republicans could be planning their takeover of the chamber, preparing rebuttal and laying the groundwork on their own inquiry.