Democrats are leery of turning this select panel into a rerun of the “hyper-partisan brawl” that was the 2015 GOP-led select committee on the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya. One should take House Democrats seriously when they say they don’t want a bitter Benghazi reboot, particularly as some of them warn against animating Trump’s base ahead of the 2022 midterms. Still, the party may find value in crafting an insurrection inquiry that, without getting overly partisan, can bruise Trump ahead of 2024.
After all, the Benghazi committee gave conservatives a chance to tee off on Clinton’s handling of the attack as secretary of state and launched Clinton’s private email server into the national consciousness, creating an indelible (albeit ultimately questionable on the substance) line of attack for her opponents. While her unflappable demeanor during an 11-hour appearance before the panel gave her 2016 presidential bid a boost, the email flap arguably dimmed her 2016 chances.
Democrats’ Jan. 6 select committee will have even more potentially damaging Trump-related avenues of inquiry to pursue . They range from the then-president’s mid-insurrection phone call with McCarthy — “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump is reported to have told the House GOP leader — to direct ties between the former president’s 2020 campaign aides and the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riot.
When Pelosi refers to “root causes” of the deadly siege, it’s hard to picture her party’s select committee not considering Trump’s speech to that rally. “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told the crowd before its march to the Capitol turned violent.
Trump might not look as “unbeatable” in 2024 primary as McCarthy claimed Clinton was in 2015. Still, a party trying to cling to its majorities might want to consider that its Jan. 6 select committee is a powerful tool to make Trump look, to use another McCarthy term, “un-trustable” in the eyes of swing voters.
Courtesy: Politicio
