How the January 6th Committee got to Ivanka Trump
The January 6th Committee only knew to target Ivanka Trump as a material witness because it first took the time to painstakingly interview hundreds of lower and mid level cooperators, including the Pence staffer who informed them of Ivanka’s interactions with Donald Trump that day.
If the committee had been more “aggressive” by going after the people at the top first, it would have failed. The committee wouldn’t have known what it was seeking or what leverage to use against higher level witnesses. Methodically building a case works. “Aggression” does not.
So the pundits who spent all that time yelling around about how the committee wasn’t being “aggressive” enough and lacked a “sense of urgency” were just yelling hyperbolic gibberish for retweets. Either they don’t know how these kinds of probes succeed, or they don’t want you to.
There’s still no guarantee the 1/6 committee will succeed in its goals. But if it had done things the way the doomsday pundits demanded, the committee would have been guaranteed to fail. It was the equivalent of bashing firefighters for taking the time to put their gear on first. Let’s keep this in mind going forward, as these same folks bash the committee for its supposed “lack of urgency” and other such nonsense.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report