The January 6th congressional committee is expected to hold its next
and likely final hearing this Thursday in prime time. Lawmakers on
the panel have already accused Donald Trump of failing to call off
the capital insurrection for hours.
In this week's hearing is expected to reveal more evidence of what
the former president was doing that day. With that as our focus let's
bring in Melody Barnes, former director of the domestic Policy council
under President Obama, she's now executive director of the Carsey
Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia.
And Hugo Lowell is back with US Congressional reporter for the Guardian
who's been at the forefront of the reporting on the committee. It's
great to have the both of you with us and Hugo A few of the committee
members appeared on the Sunday shows today and they said that they
intend to show minute by minute What Donald Trump was doing, I guess
or more to the point not doing from the moment he left that rally
stage at the Ellipse.
Return to the White House was in the White House dining room, watching
the insurrection for hours on TV and refusing to do what many of
his aides and allies were telling him to do, which was to call it
off.
Fill in the gaps. What more do we expect on Thursday and is their
goal to show criminal action? Criminal intent? I think you got it
right. They are really focused on this inaction part
Both in terms of a dereliction of duty, as you would expect a president
to do, but also a dereliction of duty from a criminal statute sense,
right? There's a statute that says, you know you through action or
inaction. Did you obstruct a official proceeding or a congressional
proceeding? And they want to show that Trump through his inaction
by sitting in that White House by sitting in the White House dining
room, looking at the violence unfolding and yet doing nothing?
Not sending a tweet not going to the briefing them. They want to
show that he was derelict in his duty and therefore is responsible
for a crime.
And melody Adam Schiff, who, as you know, sits on the committee.
He makes the point that it is extremely unusual for Congress or,
for that matter, local Da's office using the case of what's happening
in Fulton County, Georgia, to be so far out ahead of the DOJ on a
matter like this when the DOJ has greater resources. Is that a view
that you share
Well, I think that the Department of Justice in many ways has been
relying on and watching these hearings very carefully because they
select committee has been able to use subpoena power at a different
level at a different standard than the Department of Justice would
be required to. They've been able to gather information to start
to shape their case.
Um, it is my understanding, listening to what Chairman Thompson has
been saying What Congresswoman Cheney has said that there had been
conversations with the Department of Justice and that they are starting
to build. Um I don't know if it's a case but certainly gather more
information to determine whether or not they can go forward. But
there is no question that Georgia and the D A there in Fulton County
is much further ahead with the subpoenas that they have issued and
Specific people that we know are in their sights. What about that,
Hugo? What do you hear from committee members on that on that specific
issue? What they expect the DOJ to do next. If anything,
I think the committee members have been complaining a lot publicly
that DOJ hasn't been doing very much or they've been slow to respond
to. Evidence of the committee has all that DOJ has gone. I think
it's important to note those two things. First of all that the Department
of Justice has impaneled at least two grand Juries looking into people
very, very close to Trump. They have a grand jury and panel investigating
the rally organizer on January 6th, and they have a grand jury impaneled.
Investigating the lawyers close to the former president involved
in the collective scheme and then separately, the attorney general
has said that he has asked the Office of Legal Counsel, the internal
policy shop in the Department of Justice, whether he has precluded
from opening investigation into former president to which he was
told he wasn't and so I think there's a lot of
Kind of effort going on behind the scenes that the Justice Department
can't confirm publicly. But this does seem to be indications of the
Justice Department. I think, ramping up their investigation in ways
that we might not have seen Previously. While you have your guess
Virtual reporter's Notebook Open give us a sense What's happening
with these deleted texts on the part of the Secret Service? The committee
has asked to have those
Whatever records exist to be turned over by Tuesday, In advance of
this Thursday hearing, Congressman Kinzinger was on again one of
the Sunday shows today, he says he has no idea what this committee
will get because he doesn't know if any of the texts were backed
up.
Right, And that's what they heard from the inspector general for
the DHS. On Friday they had a briefing behind closed doors and according
to my reporting that DHS inspector general told them things that
really wide them. First of all that. The Secret Service's story about
how these text messages got deleted keeps changing. At one point,
it was software updates, and then later it was, Oh, you know, as
we stopped out devices, and they weren't backed up, and so we don't
have the tax messages from January five and January six, like two
of the most crucial dates.
You know when you're investigating the interaction, and so I think
that was why the Select Committee moves so fast and issuing the subpoenas
for after action reports that we understand never actually took place.
As well as these text messages to see if they can do any sort of
reconstruction any sort of evidence gathering to see if they can
piece together what was going on inside the Secret Service and Melody
Barnes as the committee has been having these hearings there has
been even before these hearings started.
A normalization on the right of January 6th being something of a
a protest rally that went sort of off the rails rather than what
it was, which was an attack on our democracy.
What do you think is the impact of that and just the way that the
American public views the functions of the government, given the
many bombshells revelations that have come forth from this committee's
work product? Obviously we have to understand what's going on in
the here and now, But the long term implications of this for democratic
institutions, democratic practices and democratic culture are quite
significant.
I'm at this point when you get it days that the public are hearing
about like December 18th in this meeting that's been described as
unhinged. I think one from the Reagan to either Bush administration
to Clinton to Obama would tell you that isn't the way at the presidency
is supposed to work and you've got a roving band of people spreading
misinformation being whisked into the White House under not under
normal circumstances. That's bizarre. That's wrong, and all of this
by some is being normalized.
I think that is a significant threat. We are teetering on the edge
and for people who don't understand that this is the moment to wake
up that we are teetering on the edge when it comes to the underpinnings
of our democracy.
And Hugo in the 30 seconds we have left. I mentioned at the outset
that this is likely the final hearing. But we heard from committee
members today that it it may not be, what more should we expect?
And according to my sources, that may even be a second set of hearings
towards the end of August, right? I mean, this is still very much
an ongoing investigation. That's what we keep hearing from the chairman
of secondary and other members.
Do you go low and Melody Barnes thanks So much for being with us.