It’s become clear over time that the Jan. 6 attack was the end result of an overarching attempt to overthrow the election results. If the committee wants to understand not only the particulars of that day but also the people behind it, as is its stated goal, then it must consider a much wider range of events to probe the ideas that animated it — and the means to prevent it from recurring.
That begins with then-President Donald Trump’s attempt to discredit mail-in voting (including his attorney general’s decision to chime in on that lie as well). From that point, the plan to steal the election unfurled in plain sight: the propagation of the “big lie” of a stolen election after Joe Biden’s victory; the efforts to sway Georgia and Michigan officials to flip their states’ electoral votes; Trump’s barrage ordering the Justice Department to declare the election fraudulent and “leave the rest to me”; and Trump’s strong-arming of then-Vice President Mike Pence. We also learned, “Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that his abrupt resignation in January had been prompted by Justice Department officials’ warning that President Donald J. Trump intended to fire him for refusing to say that widespread voter fraud had been found in Georgia,” the New York Times reported. All of this led up to Trump’s inciting a mob to attack the Capitol, amounting to a unified plot to install Trump president after he lost reelection.
In that light, one can see that the insurrection on Jan. 6 occurred because all other efforts to subvert the election failed. The Jan. 6 committee, therefore, has no recourse but to study the entire story. Isolating that day of violence as the only matter of interest is akin to reading the last page of a thriller without understanding how the narrative took us to the conclusion.
That’s why it is so significant that Attorney General Merrick Garland moved to free current and former Justice Department employees from the restraints of executive privilege so they can testify. The Justice Department announced this decision in the form of letters sent to several former Trump administration officials, including former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen. While these letters were signed by Bradley Weinsheimer, who serves in a nonpolitical post (associate deputy attorney general), the language lays out a road map for calling many more witnesses throughout the department — and indeed the entire former administration. Weinsheimer nods to the department’s “longstanding policy of closely protecting the decision-making communications among senior Department officials” — and then proceeds to drive a truck through that barrier. The letter points to the “extraordinary events” and the “compelling interest” for Congress to investigate Trump’s effort “to advance his personal political interests with respect to the results of the 2020 presidential election.” “Personal political interests,” in this case, means overthrowing the election results and reinstalling himself into office.
The scope of the permission to testify is extraordinarily broad, as relayed in Weinsheimer’s letter. He wrote that he consulted with White House counsel, who in turn told him it “would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege with respect to communications with former President Trump and his advisers and staff” on matters relating to the Jan. 6 committee’s inquiry. That is not limited to just Justice Department employees. The administration is apparently waiving privilege with regard to any Trump adviser — including those at the White House and Defense Department who may have played roles in the sequence of events touched off by Trump’s defeat.
In short, the Jan. 6 select committee should now be considered the “plot to steal the election” committee. That’s a broad investigation, but it seems the range of documents and witnesses the select committee has access to is just as broad. For now, there is no sign the Justice Department is conducting its own criminal investigation. Then again, it doesn’t have to. It and the White House counsel’s office have given the select committee the green light to look deep into the former administration to investigate the entire conspiracy to steal the election.