The committee formed to investigate the role of former President Donald Trump and key aides in last year’s Capitol insurrection faces high stakes as it holds its 10th and possibly last public hearing on Oct. 13, 2022.
Thus, the committee faces a ticking clock as it wraps up its hearings and finalizes its report, which may recommend criminal charges against Trump and crucial election security reforms. However, it is possible that there will be no immediate legal, policy or political ramifications of the committee’s work.
But as a scholar of oversight who in 2019 spent a year working on the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, I believe the committee’s work will have historic impact. That effect, though, may take years to be seen and felt.
And no matter how compelling a case the committee’s final report might make, the Department of Justice may simply choose not to indict the former president.
In terms of policy changes that could emerge from the committee’s efforts, the House passed the Presidential Election Reform Act in September 2022, which among other provisions clarifies the vice president’s role in the certification of Electoral College votes. The Senate has taken bipartisan action on their version of the bill, but its fate is still uncertain.
Courting the public
Political scientist Paul Light argues that the most “high impact” investigations over the course of American history achieved their success “through a mix of fact-finding, bipartisanship, and strong leadership.” The Jan. 6th Committee took an approach that emphasized facts in presenting its case to the American people.
Assessing the full impact of the investigation requires patience – probably decades’ worth.
I believe the House Jan. 6 committee’s legacy will depend on how its in-depth rendering of the events surrounding the 2020 election and the ensuing insurrection is presented, repeated and understood by successive generations of Americans.
Congress had originally planned to establish an independent body to investigate the Capitol attacks, modeled on the 9/11 Commission – an idea killed by Senate Republicans last year. So the House committee’s work constitutes, at least thus far, the authoritative public record on the insurrection, with no credible competitor.
This record will serve as a permanent, invaluable cache of information for future investigators, both inside and outside of Congress. It will also inform and inspire the scholars, journalists, novelists and filmmakers who are already shaping the public’s collective understanding of a watershed moment in the history of American democracy.
As one of my students at Smith College recently put it: “Being sixteen years old and watching people attack the Capitol – I never thought I’d see anything like it. The way my grandparents talk about JFK’s assassination or the Kent State massacre is the way I might talk about this to my kids someday.”
Claire Leavitt has received funding from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy.