Jan. 6 hearings have wounded Trump, and more decline may be ahead

WASHINGTON —  Six weeks of televised hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have not collapsed Donald Trump‘s support, but they have left the former president politically wounded and deepened his legal jeopardy.

Yes, Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party, able to exact revenge against political figures who openly fight him. His chief Republican tormentor on the Jan. 6 panel, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, faces almost certain defeat in her primary next month — a recent poll showed her trailing her Trump-endorsed opponent by 22 percentage points.

But even before the hearings, losses by Trump-endorsed candidates in other primaries showed the limits of his power to reward or punish. At the same time, his much-vaunted moneymaking operation has slowed, with fundraising by his main political group falling sharply in the last six months and slipping behind that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as the Washington Post reported this week.

Against that background, Trump’s widely rumored plan to formally declare this fall that he’s running for the 2024 presidential nomination looks more desperate than dominating — a high-risk gambit by a politician who fears the spotlight may soon shine on someone else.

A deeper look at Trump’s conduct

During Trump’s February 2021 trial in the Senate, his defenders accused House impeachment managers of rushing ahead without taking time to gather evidence.

“The House managers did zero investigation, and the American people deserve a lot better than coming in here with no evidence, hearsay on top of hearsay on top of reports that are hearsay,” Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen declared then.

He didn’t really mean he wanted an investigation, of course. Instead, the accusation served as a convenient way to deflect questions from senators about whether Trump knew in advance about the potential for violence and what, if anything, he did to stop it.

The televised hearings have answered many of those questions, providing evidence that Trump’s closest aides, including his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, knew in advance that the events of Jan. 6 could turn violent, and that when Trump exhorted his supporters that morning to march on the Capitol, he knew that many of them were armed.

Thursday’s hearing showed that for hours, Trump did nothing to stop the violence. As his supporters overran the Capitol and as Secret Service agents on Vice President Mike Pence’s protective detail sent messages to loved ones expressing fear for their lives, Trump sat in his White House dining room and called senators to try to find ways to delay the electoral count, a point stressed by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who led the evening’s questioning along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

Trump did so after being told, repeatedly, that there was no legal or factual basis for his claims of election fraud.

Van der Veen asserted during the impeachment trial that “to claim that the president in any way wished, desired or encouraged lawless or violent behavior is a preposterous and monstrous lie.” That statement seemed dubious at the time. It’s now has been clearly refuted by Trump’s own words.

“I don’t f— care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” Trump declared, referring to the supporters he was about to address, according to the testimony this month by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

All that is relevant to the historical record of the impeachment charge, which accused Trump of having “betrayed his trust as President.”

It’s also central to the possibility of criminal charges, either against Trump or people in his immediate circle.

Two federal charges have been most discussed: 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c) prohibits obstructing an official proceeding, and 18 U.S.C. Section 371 covers conspiracies to defraud the U.S., including efforts to impede “the lawful functions of any department of Government.” Both require showing intent to interfere with a lawful government function (counting ballots and certifying the election, for example) as well as actions by the defendants that were “corrupt” or that used deceit or dishonesty.

Advance knowledge of the possibility of violence would help show intent, while knowing that the claims of election fraud were bogus would provide evidence of deceit and dishonesty.

At Thursday’s hearing, Kinzinger made the point about intent explicit.

“The mob was accomplishing President Trump’s purpose, so of course he didn’t intervene. President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He chose not to act,” Kinzinger said.

Whether federal prosecutors will feel they can prove those elements against Trump remains a question for the future. But the hearings have put new energy into the criminal investigation. Trump and people close to him also could face charges from a grand jury in Georgia examining efforts to overturn the election results in that state, according to court filings.

At minimum, the hearing testimony has reminded some Republicans that lashing themselves to the former president puts them at risk from a steady drip of new revelations.

How much the hearings have changed the political climate depends on what questions are asked and of whom.

Committed Trump partisans mostly haven’t watched the hearings — 56% of Democrats but only 35% of Republicans say they have heard “a lot” about the testimony, according to a Marquette University nationwide poll released on Thursday.

Other Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have watched, however, and some have shifted. Among independents, the share who described the events of Jan. 6 as a “political protest protected under the First Amendment” has dropped significantly and the share calling it an “insurrection” and a “threat to democracy” has gone up since before the hearings, according to a NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll.

Views are more dug in on the question of Trump’s personal culpability, the poll found. The share of Americans who say that Trump bears “a great deal” or a “good amount” of the blame for what happened stood at 57% in the latest survey, up slightly from 53% in December, Marist found. Among Democrats, 92% blamed Trump, as did 57% of independents, but only 18% of Republicans.

A potentially more telling indicator is that Trump’s personal standing with the public, never high, has fallen during the course of the hearings. Currently, 55% of Americans have a negative view of Trump, compared with 41% who see him positively, according to the average of polls maintained by the Fivethirtyeight website. That 14-point deficit compares with 10 points in May — not a huge shift, but movement in the wrong direction for a person hoping to mount a political comeback.

A New York Times/Siena College poll this month found that about 1 in 6 Republicans said that if in 2024, Trump once again faced off against President Biden, they would support Biden, vote for a third-party candidate or skip the election or weren’t sure what they would do. That’s a notable level of defection within his own party against an incumbent president struggling with extremely low job approval. In 2020, just under 1 in 10 Republicans voted for someone other than Trump, according to the AP VoteCast exit poll.

Polls aren’t the only evidence of the erosion of Trump’s political base. There’s also the behavior of other ambitious Republicans, who have grown bolder in their challenges to him.

Pence, for example, spent four years in office loyally defending Trump, and in the months immediately after Jan. 6, carefully avoided criticizing him, even after the experience of being evacuated as the mob Trump egged on screamed for him to be hanged.

Friday, he and Trump are scheduled to be in Arizona holding dueling rallies supporting opposing candidates in the state’s Republican primary for governor.

Moving on from Trump doesn’t necessarily mean repudiating Trumpism. The former president didn’t invent the political attitudes associated with his name — opposition to immigration, suspicion of liberal elites, a desire to turn back the clock on racial and gender diversity. His political skill lay in recognizing what Republican voters wanted and articulating it, as loudly and provocatively as possible.

Whoever wins the 2024 nomination will resemble Trump much more than Sen. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 candidate and exemplar of the GOP establishment of yore. But the hearings have upped the odds that the candidate won’t be Trump, himself.

Coverage of the Jan. 6 hearing

— Trump’s refusal for more than three hours to call off the mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 constituted a dereliction of duty, the House committee said in its prime-time hearing, as Sarah Wire reported.

— Want the highlights of the hearing? Arit John offers these four key takeaways.

— As Nolan McCaskill reported, the hearing also revealed that several witnesses have corroborated elements of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony on June 28. Hutchinson testified about Trump’s furious demands that the Secret Service drive him to the Capitol as his supporters marched on the building, culminating in an alleged physical altercation between Trump and one of the agents on his protective detail. The new witnesses didn’t verify all the elements in her testimony but did confirm that a heated argument occurred.

— Sen. Josh Hawley, who raised a fist in solidarity with protesters at the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, ran from the violence later that day, Anumita Kaur reported. Hawley’s flight was captured in photos and video presented at the hearing.

The latest from the campaign trail

— As some Democrats panic over Biden’s unpopularity and urge him not to run again in 2024, the list of names of potential nominees has grown long. But don’t count out the obvious choice of Vice President Kamala Harris, who remains the frontrunner if Biden decides not to go for a second term, Mark Barabak writes.

— A coalition of progressive groups is making a major push in Arizona in the race for an office that once got very little attention — secretary of state. As Melanie Mason reported, the campaign is the latest example of how Trump’s election denialism has focused interest on the job, which in many states oversees the election machinery. It’s also a test of progressive grassroots organizing in the state.

The latest from Washington

— Congress may be poised to pass legislation protecting same-sex marriage rights, an unexpected response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion, which many fear could presage a further rollback of rights, Jennifer Haberkorn reported. The House this week voted 267 to 157 — with the support of 47 Republicans — to codify marriage equity. Four Senate Republicans have publicly said they would support the bill, and enough others may join them for the bill to pass.

— The Supreme Court turned down an emergency appeal from the Biden administration and left in place a Texas judge’s order that says the government must detain and deport immigrants who have serious crimes on their record. The administration’s policy has been to focus enforcement on immigrants who pose the greatest threat to public safety. As David Savage reported, the high court agreed to hear the administration’s full appeal in December. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cast her first vote in dissent, saying she would have set aside the judge‘s order. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett also voted to grant the administration’s emergency appeal.

— Biden, the oldest person ever to serve as president, tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday but said his symptoms were mild and credited vaccines and booster shots with keeping him healthy, Eli Stokols reported. White House officials have taken extensive precautions to keep the virus away from Biden but in recent months had made clear that they expected him to test positive eventually.

— The day before he tested positive, Biden traveled to Massachusetts to announce two executive orders designed to bolster offshore wind energy programs and help communities adapt to extreme heat — the first in a series of actions to confront climate change that he’s expected to roll out this summer, Courtney Subramanian and Eli Stokols reported. A broader legislative plan to bolster renewable energy died in the Senate this month when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced he would not support it.

— The administration is significantly expanding a list of Central American officials deemed too corrupt to work with or to be allowed to enter the United States, Tracy Wilkinson reported. People on the list are denied U.S. visas, barred from traveling to the U.S. and considered off limits to U.S. businesses and most government programs. The State Department has added 60 people to the list, including several senior members of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s administration, a number of wealthy business figures linked to Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and at least one advisor to the new president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro.

— Some 1.6 million Californian households have enrolled in an affordable internet program that was made possible by the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed in November, according to White House officials. As Erin Logan reported, the affordable internet program enables households to cut their monthly internet bill by up to $30 per month. California has the highest number of enrollees of any state, according to the White House.

The latest from California

— A political fight over a City Council seat has deprived hundreds of thousands of residents of South L.A. of representation for months and split the Black community, Erika Smith writes. The fight is over the seat that Mark Ridley-Thomas vacated after he was indicted on federal bribery charges. City Council President Nury Martinez appointed former Councilmember Herb Wesson to fill the vacancy, but a judge ruled that Wesson is ineligible because he already has served three terms on the council and is therefore termed out.

— Democrats are on defense across the country in this year’s midterm elections, but as Seema Mehta reported, they appear to believe they can go on offense and flip GOP congressional districts in California. Five of six candidates added to the party’s “Red to Blue” program this week are in the state. Two are seeking open seats — Dr. Kermit Jones is running against GOP Assemblyman Kevin Kiley in a sprawling district that spans much of eastern California; Assemblyman Adam Gray is vying with Republican nursery owner John Duarte in the Central Valley. The other three are Assemblywoman Christy Smith, who is challenging GOP Rep. Mike Garcia in northern Los Angeles County; Dr. Asif Mahmood, who is vying with Republican Rep. Young Kim in an Orange County-centric district; and former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, who hopes to defeat Rep. Ken Calvert — the longest-serving GOP member of California’s congressional delegation — in Riverside County.

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