Rep. Raskin on what the Jan. 6 committee accomplished in the first public hearing

Judy Woodruff:

For more takeaways from last night's hearing, we turned to a member of the January 6 Select Committee, who also served as the lead impeachment manager in former President Trump's second impeachment trial.

He is Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin.

Congressman Raskin, thank you very much for joining us.

What do you think the committee accomplished with last night's hearing?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Well, we showed not only that the whole plot against the 2020 presidential election was based on a big lie, but that Donald Trump knew it was a big lie, that all of his closest legal advisers, including Attorney General William Barr, the White House counsel, all of them told him that this was nonsense, there was nothing there.

And yet he proceeded anyway. And he engaged in the seven-part plan to try to strip Joe Biden of his lawful majority in the Electoral College vote. He tried to usurp the will of the American people and replace the will of a sitting president who wanted to seize the presidency and essentially become an autocrat, a tyrant over the people.

And we are also showing — and you saw a good piece of this last night — the way in which mob violence was recruited to the cause, and there were domestic violent extremist groups that came together to overthrow the election and to engage in insurrectionary violence against the constitutional order.

Judy Woodruff:

And, Congressman, given that, what do you say to Republicans who are out there, like Congressman Jim Banks, who spoke today with my colleague Lisa Desjardins, who are saying that the committee used selectively edited videos, that it was mainly theatrical, and that you really didn't do — prove anything with regard to President Trump directing what happened at the Capitol?

Rep. Jamie Raskin:

Well, they have obviously been over our hearing with a fine-tooth comb. In other words, they come back, and they cannot challenge a single fact. They cannot challenge a single piece of evidence, but they have to call the whole thing a sham, which is meaningless.

They have tried that in court too, and all of the courts that have looked at it have rejected their claims that somehow we're unlawfully composed. No, they say we are a perfectly lawfully composed, bipartisan entity, unlike our critics, who are all of one particular political party.

And we are engaged in the essential legislative work of trying to investigate an assault on the constitutional order itself. And the first rule of thumb for a democratic government is survival and self-preservation against those who would tear it down.

And it's sad, because, as we have been able to show already, a lot of them were very upset about what had happened. They were begging the president to act. They were very tough on the president for the first few days later. Then, essentially, Donald Trump brought them all back into line. It's a sad thing to say.

Judy Woodruff:

Congressman, one other point that Republicans continue to make is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democratic leadership prevented, in effect, the National Guard from being there to bolster what security, the Capitol Police were able to provide.

What's the response to that?

Rep. Jamie Raskin:

Well, that's utterly false and baseless. There's nothing to support that.

And we will explain, best we can, how the National Guard's response was so slow. But it's the president of the United States who oversees the Army, which oversees the National Guard of the District of Columbia, which has no governor for itself. So that's a bizarre argument for them to make.

But they're throwing up a lot of ridiculous stuff because they don't want to focus on the essence of this investigation, which is that we have a disappointed president who was defeated by more than seven million votes, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, who refused to accept his defeat, and decided to disseminate propaganda about this big lie, and then work in a whole bunch of different ways to try to illegitimately undermine and destroy his opponent's victory in the presidential election.

And that is not going to work for us as a constitutional democracy in this century.

Judy Woodruff:

And, Congressman, given how divided the country is politically, how do you expect to change the minds of the millions of Americans who today believe former President Trump that the election was stolen?

Rep. Jamie Raskin:

Well, it's divided because of this. It's divided because there has been a big lie. It's divided because there's been this onslaught against fair elections across the country administered by Republicans, Democrats, independents.

I think it's a responsibility that's not just on the shoulders of the nine of us on this committee or everybody in Congress. It's the responsibility of everybody, and the parents to talk to their kids and teachers to talk to their students and to explain how a constitutional democracy works, and that there's a difference between fact and fiction, there's a difference between truth and lies and conspiracy theories.

And the struggle to defend democratic institutions is interwoven with the struggle to arrive at the truth and to tell the truth to the people.

Judy Woodruff:

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a member of the House January 6 Select Committee, thank you so much.

Rep. Jamie Raskin:

It's always a pleasure to be with you.