Hearing Aides For America, Con't

As I said Friday, the purpose of the hearings is the make the case to America why Donald Trump must be arrested, tried, and convicted of sedition. 

The New York Times has come to a similar conclusion.

The first prime-time hearing into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol this past week confronted the fundamental question that has haunted Mr. Trump, the 45th president, ever since he left office: Should he be prosecuted in a criminal court for his relentless efforts to defy the will of the voters and hang on to power?

For two hours on Thursday night, the House committee investigating the Capitol attack detailed what it called Mr. Trump’s “illegal” and “unconstitutional” seven-part plan to prevent the transfer of power. The panel invoked the Justice Department, citing charges of seditious conspiracy filed against some of the attackers, and seemed to be laying out a road map for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to their central target.

Several former prosecutors and veteran lawyers said afterward that the hearing offered the makings of a credible criminal case for conspiracy to commit fraud or obstruction of the work of Congress.

In presenting her summary of the evidence, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chairwoman, demonstrated that Mr. Trump was told repeatedly by his own advisers that he had lost the election yet repeatedly lied to the country by claiming it had been stolen. He pressured state and federal officials, members of Congress and even his own vice president to disregard vote tallies in key states. And he encouraged the mob led by extremist groups like the Proud Boys while making no serious effort to stop the attack once it began.

“I think the committee, especially Liz Cheney, outlined a powerful criminal case against the former president,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama.

“A crime requires two things — a bad act and criminal intent,” Mr. Katyal said. By citing testimony by Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, a lawyer for his campaign and others who told him that he had lost and then documenting his failure to act once supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr. Katyal said, the panel addressed both of those requirements.

 

The whole point is to make to case to people why the Justice Department must charge Trump. Whether or not that happens, well.