The most devastating January 6th Committee public witnesses of all
The January 6th Committee could have rolled the dice and let unhinged Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes publicly testify. After all, he did make the offer. But that might have gone totally off the rails. Instead the committee is smartly having Rhodes’ reformed former spokesman publicly testify against the Oath Keepers.
The committee also could have taken the QAnon Shaman, a high profile but seemingly unstable Capitol attacker, up on his offer to publicly testify. Instead the committee is having a lower profile, but apparently far more stable and coherent, remorseful Capitol attacker testify.
If Rhodes and the Shaman really had already come around to remorse and stability, and could be relied upon to give coherent and useful public testimony, of course the committee would have used them. But why roll the dice by putting unhinged witnesses on live national television?
Those are the kinds of risks you only take if you’re losing, you failed to find more credible and cooperative inside witnesses, and your message isn’t getting across to the public, and so you have to roll the dice on Stewart Rhodes waking up in a rare lucid mood that day.
But the 1/6 Committee is, by any measure, winning so far. Audiences are large. Witnesses are compelling. More witnesses coming forward. Narratives are carrying beyond the live audience to water cooler talk. Minds appear to be at least incrementally changing as the hearings go on.
That doesn’t mean the committee should take its foot off the gas, nor will it. But it means you don’t roll the dice by tossing a hot mic to an unstable witness or an unrepentant domestic terrorist, on the gamble that you can get the best of them while they’re trying to spew nonsense. Instead the committee took its time to do its homework, and found lower profile witnesses that are proving far more credible and thus far more influential.
