Jan. 6 panel probes full Capitol riot story, US risks

WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol played out for the world to see, but the House committee investigating the attack believes a more chilling story has yet to be told — about the president and the people whose actions put American democracy at risk.

With personal accounts and gruesome videos the 1/6 committee expects today’s primetime hearing to begin to show that America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power came close to slipping away. It will reconstruct how the president, Donald Trump, refused to concede the 2020 election, spread false claims of voter fraud and orchestrated an unprecedented public and private campaign to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

The result of the coming weeks of public hearings may not change hearts or minds in politically polarized America. But the committee’s year-long investigation with 1,000 interviews is intended to stand as a public record for history. A final report aims to provide an accounting of the most violent attack on the Capitol since the British set fire in 1814, and ensure it never happens again.

“This is not a game,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor and co-author of “How Democracies Die,” who has written extensively on the world’s democratic governments.

“We suffered an assault on our democracy the likes of which none of us have seen in our lifetime.”

Emotions are still raw at the Capitol 17 months after Trump sent his supporters to Congress to “fight like hell” for his presidency. That was on a Wednesday, two months after the election, a traditionally celebratory if ho-hum day when Congress is tasked with certifying the November results.

Security will be tight for the hearings. Law enforcement officials are reporting a spike in violent threats against members of Congress.

Against this backdrop, the committee will try to speak to a divided America, ahead of the fall midterm elections when voters will decide which party controls the Congress. Most TV networks will carry the hearings live, Fox News will not.

“We’re going to tell the story of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” says Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee.

“You really have to go back to the Civil War to understand anything like it.”

First up will be wrenching accounts from police who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the mob, with testimony from U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who was seriously injured in the melee.

Also appearing today will be documentary maker Nick Quested who filmed the extremist Proud Boys storming the Capitol. Some of that group’s members have since been indicted as have some from the Oath Keepers on rare sedition charges over the military-style attack.