Something “historically unprecedented” happened again in connection with Donald Trump, as the “Washington Post” and the “New Yorker” write, among others. The House inquiry into the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol has completed its work and recommended that the US Department of Justice indict ex-President Donald Trump for his role in the brutal attack on the House of Representatives in Washington. It is a result of which there was no doubt before.
From the outset, the committee was largely interested in Trump’s role on Jan. 6 and little in other issues — such as the cause of security failures. With the help of a TV producer, an attempt was made to stage the subpoenas in a particularly effective way.
The Democrats and Trump-critical Republicans on the committee succeeded in anchoring narratives in public memory whose veracity is difficult to verify. The fact that Trump grabbed the driver’s steering wheel in his presidential limousine to urge him to drive in front of the Capitol, for example, is only second-hand and is denied by the Secret Service.
Nonetheless, the work of the committee was insightful. Testimony also advanced law enforcement investigations. The Democrats, however, were primarily concerned with feeding the narrative of a corrupt, ruthless and anti-democratic egomaniac in the White House.
Only: Trump’s baseness has long been known, it made his political success possible – and not curtailed. As of January 6, all Americans (at least those who aren’t just struggling to survive the inflationary crisis) now have an opinion that the committee is unlikely to change, polls also show.
In addition, the committee’s recommendation is unlikely to result in immediate criminal action against Trump. The Department of Justice itself is investigating several cases against Trump and should only consider the findings of the parliamentary surveys as a welcome addition to its own work.
Whether the ex-president will be charged – be it for his actions on January 6, 2021 or for his embezzlement of secret service documents – is not yet clear. As so often in the Trump era, “historically unprecedented” means in this case first of all “historically without consequences”.
