Former President Donald Trump thinks the House select committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol shouldn’t be investigating the attack, but instead investigating the claims of voter fraud that spurred the attack. But Trump must not be watching the hearings, because they are about those claims.
So far, the hearings are less about the specific acts committed on that day, and more about the disinformation campaign Trump waged before and after the 2020 election. This campaign told millions of Americans a lie, convinced them it was true and inspired hundreds to attempt to violently disrupt the country’s democratic process. The hearings have shown how Trump continued to promote the “Big Lie” even as his advisers told him it was nonsense, dozens of court cases attempting to prove fraud were dismissed, and investigators failed to find any evidence of fraud. The hearings have centered on the systemic rot of Trump’s denialism, and how that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack. The focus of the hearings is twofold: the disease of misinformation, not just the symptoms of its malignancy, and how that disease, when left unchecked, can devolve into a violently destructive force.
On Monday, the committee used recorded and live testimony from people in Trump’s inner circle to demonstrate that the claims of election fraud being raised by Trump and his supporters were investigated and that they repeatedly turned out to be bunk. Taped testimony from Bill Stepien, Trump’s...
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