Jan 6th Committee Will Not Silence Itself Pre-Election

Last updated on July 21st, 2023 at 06:20 pm

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The Justice Department has a policy, a malleable one, that prohibits it from making announcements within a 60-day window before an election if that announcement would politically influence an election, whether federal, state, or local. It is a reasonable policy because even an indictment doesn’t operate as a conviction and thus proves nothing and shouldn’t play a role in the voters’ minds. The January 6th Committee doesn’t believe that it has the same responsibility and will go forward with its public findings in the period prior to the election.

According to Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, “[October] won’t be a quiet period.” The next hearing is tentatively scheduled for September 28th.

From Axios:

 The committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol plans to hold at least one more hearing late this month and release early findings and recommendations before the election.

Despite the panel’s long-stated goal of avoiding perceptions of partisanship or politicization, a noisy October could impact the midterms.

The Committee is relying on its reputation for the responsible presentation of facts to protect it from attacks of partisanship:

 “There are those partisans of former President Trump that will denounce anything we do, so we’re not going to jump through hoops to please people who will call anything we do partisan,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) Raskin said the committee has achieved “a good reputation with the American people for sticking to the facts.

It is true. The same people claiming that the Committee is a partisan endeavor “out to get Trump” are the same people promising a new Committee that will investigate… Nancy Pelosi’s “failure” to protect the Capitol from a MAGA army spurned on by Trump, having been bussed to the location by groups that now face subpoenas from DOJ. These plans presume the GOP wins a majority in the House this November. Partisan indeed.

It is also very possible that the new Republican Committee would also get involved in what has become the GOP’s expected response to investigations. They might punish the Democratic Committee for doing its work by “investigating the investigators.”

It is heartening to hear that the Committee will continue to release its findings. DOJ is investigating the matter thoroughly, and DOJ will dig out a lot of truths. But DOJ is necessarily confined in that much of its investigative findings must remain secret in order to preserve a possible defendant’s constitutional rights. Congress doesn’t have such limitations. If Congress finds highly reliable hearsay as evidence regarding what happened, it can release that hearsay. DOJ cannot do such a thing because it could pollute a jury pool and is inadmissible evidence. Thus, in order to get a more complete picture, the public must rely upon Congress and this Committee.

Unfortunately, given what we’ve seen and been promised, a GOP Congress would either have no interest in how an insurrection came about or make the insurrection about the Speaker’s inability to protect the Capitol from raging and dangerous GOP voters. Strange world they inhabit.

Jason Miciak

@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.