Richard II, who considered himself “heavenly remunerated.” Julius Caesar, who believed himself to be as “constant as the North Star.” Edmund, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester king learwho was called upon to commit a heinous deed and was told, “Be tender/A sword cannot be made.” Tuesday’s US congressional hearings on the January 6, 2021 insurgency – marked by stunning revelations about the role militant extremists played in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and devastating testimony from his former adviser White House Pat Cipollone – they had a lot of Shakespearean elements. Measure for measure, these hearings — including Tuesday’s accounts of an “independent” meeting with Trump at the White House. strategic coordination between Trump confidants, including former presidential confidant Roger Stone, and violent groups. and extremist calls for “a red wedding” on Capitol Hill, a colloquial term for mass slaughter – have presented a shocking illustration. They show a president who was determined to maintain power in a political system that rewards the losers with favor, and who enlisted the help of both willing conspirators from the heart of public life and violent raiders on, and beyond, the fringes. of respectable society. Jan. 6 panel accuses Trump of inciting extremists to attack Capitol after ‘nonstop’ White House meeting But despite accounts of Mr Trump’s mobilization of radical groups Oath Keepers and Proud Boys aired in the latest episode, the haunting idea remains that the committee may have proceeded, in Othello’s words, “not wisely but very well.” One of the most serious questions remains unanswered: Did this operation, run by seven Democratic regulars and two Republican insurgents, lessen its impact by making itself vulnerable to accusations that it is a partisan exercise that began with a conclusion and proceeded to find evidence to support it? From the beginning, administrators and commentators compared these hearings to the Watergate scandal and the 1974 investigation that led the House Judiciary Committee to report three articles of impeachment against former President Richard Nixon. Much of the strength of this action came from the presence of 17 Republicans on the panel. However, the current survey does not include anyone who remotely matches the likes of Rep. Ed Hutchinson of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the committee. Tom Railsback of Illinois, who credited Mr. Nixon with his election to Congress. or M. Caldwell Butler of Virginia, who was a friendly guest of the Nixons at the White House family residence. They, and four other Republicans, voted for at least one of the articles of impeachment against Mr. Nixon. “The hearings will be seen in the future as a flawed partisan exercise,” said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College and co-editor of The Trump Effect: The Disruption and Its Consequences for US Politics and Governmentwhich was published at the beginning of the year. And although Mr. Schier said he believed “it will be understood that they revealed troubling details about President Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6,” the committee’s proceedings lack the credibility that a bipartisan investigation provides, even if all Republicans beyond spokeswoman Liz Cheney. Wyoming and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — both of whom voted to impeach Mr. Trump in 2021 — were to dissent from the rest of the committee. Members of a US House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill pointed to ties Tuesday between Trump allies and right-wing militant groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the online conspiracy movement QAnon. Reuters Kenneth Khachigian, a longtime Nixon aide who moved to San Clemente, Calif., two months after the president resigned to help him with his memoirs, blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for stacking the committee blocking the leader’s two picks of the House Minority, Kevin McCarthy. the committee — a decision that prompted him to urge his Republican members to boycott the committee. “Her reluctance to provide political balance to the committee and provide even a modicum of fairness and bipartisanship will diminish her credibility and her place in history,” Mr. Khachigian said. Still, the hearings were what Jon Michaels, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, said were “masterpiece productions — gems of clarity, economy and illumination.” This was especially evident in two of the most important moments on Tuesday. Former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove spoke of Mr Trump’s attempt to create “an armed revolution”. Mr. Cipollone said there was no evidence of voter fraud and that he and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows believed Mr. Trump would agree to a graceful exit from the presidency. “I thought he had to concede the election at some point?” said Mr. Cipollone. “Yes I did it.” The hearing included Trump confidants pondering a plan to ask Defense Department officials to seize voting machines. depicted a wild December 18, 2020 meeting in which outside advisers fueled the president’s idea that he could prevail using what Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland called “outrageous and unworkable plans.” showed how extremists’ views that “Trump just told us to all come armed” and “we need firing squad volunteers” contributed to the violence. and showed that, as Trump’s former spokeswoman Katrina Pearson said, the president “likes crazies,” meaning “people who would be very, very vicious” to defend him. Shakespeare’s plays tell us that there are moments of choice in life and in the lives of nations. This entire episode is about such various moments – the president’s choice to contest the election and then riot on Capitol Hill, the Trump circle’s choice to collude with violent extremists, the Democratic leadership’s choice to create a committee that has strong partisan tones, the country’s choices that mark this fall’s congressional elections and the 2024 presidential election. “Shakespeare is complicated,” David Scott Kastan, Yale’s distinguished playwright scholar, said in an interview. “The important thing at this moment is that morality is not complicated.” The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
