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Don’t You Dare Compare Jan. 6 Hearings to Watergate


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Real Clear Politics

Hardly a day goes by when some dyspeptic George Will-type doesn’t solemnly invoke the Watergate hearings as the only precedent for the House Jan. 6 committee hearings chaired by Rep. Benny Thompson.

But puh-leeze!

I knew Sam Ervin, and Benny Thompson is no Sam Ervin. OK, I didn’t really know Senator Sam, but like millions of others I watched him chair the Senate Watergate Committee, and I got to know and trust him for his fairness, his sense of humor, and his humility.

Those are three qualities that are not just lacking in Thompson, but mysteriously absent from every member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the United States Capitol (hereinafter known as the Get Trump Committee)

 

If you were looking for a word to describe Thompson, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger, how about smug, sanctimonious, self-satisfied? Take your pick. Any of them would accurately describe the demeanor and character of all the members of the Jan. 6 committee. In fact, the current committee is as far from the Watergate committee that was investigating campaign practices of President Nixon as a monkey is from a monk.

Start with this forgotten fact: The Watergate Committee was created by a unanimous vote of the Senate, truly bipartisan and truly reflective of a national mandate to learn the truth about the Watergate break-in. The Get Trump Committee was created by a vote of 222-190 in the House, with only two Republicans voting to support the partisan assault on President Trump – namely Cheney and Kinzinger, both of whom had earlier voted to impeach Trump and who had already made up their minds that he was a danger to the country.

The Watergate Committee had Republicans selected by the Senate minority leader to serve on the committee to ensure that Republican President Richard Nixon got fair treatment. The Get Trump Committee has only two Trump-hating Republicans among its members, namely the aforementioned Cheney and Kinzinger, who were selected not by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy but by the Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy had originally appointed five members to the committee, but then withdrew those after Pelosi refused to seat two of them because they made it known that they would actually ensure that President Trump’s rights were protected in the hearings.

 

As currently constituted the committee has afforded Donald Trump no rights whatsoever. There is no minority counsel. There is no ranking member. There is no Republican-appointed legal staff working to challenge the narrative put forth by the Trump-hating majority. Worst of all, there is no cross-examination. Of course not. After all, cross-examination has been called the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. If you aren’t after the truth, you don’t allow cross-examination. Just ask Stalin.:snip:

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