Analyzing the latest Jan. 6 Committee hearing and what happens next

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• Amna Nawaz:

  And for more analysis of today's hearing, I'm joined here by Mary McCord, director of Georgetown University's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and protection. She's also a former Justice Department official. And Jamil Jaffer, a law professor at George Mason University and former associate counsel to President George W. Bush.

  Welcome to you both. Good to see you.

  Mary, let's start with where Lisa left us off there. We heard Representative Aguilar mentioned possible investigation of obstruction. What did we learn, what did you hear related to that from today's hearing?

• Mary McCord, Former Justice Department Official:

  Well, we didn't have a lot of the details of what exactly they are going to be investigating.

  But it certainly sounds like some of the new evidence they have obtained since the last hearing suggests that the Secret Service knew far, far more than it had let on previously about the danger, the threats of violence to members, to the Capitol, to Vice President Pence.

  That was a significant amount of today's new evidence. And it appeared by that little teaser that the congressmember gave us that that might be inconsistent with what they have potentially heard with some — from some of those Secret Service members who they have spoken with.

  And that's, I think, what he was indicating to us.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jamil, do you agree with that? When you hear obstruction, what are you thinking here?

• Jamil Jaffer, Former Senior Counsel, House Intelligence Committee:

  Yes.

  Well, Amna, we heard earlier on in some of the hearings that some folks had been advised not to talk to the committee or had been advised, hey, I know you're with me or you're with the president, right? Want to just check in and see how you're doing, right?

  So if people around the president or the president self are making those phone calls, that kind of conversation when people are going to testify before Congress can lead to obstruction charges. And that's a real problem for the president and those around him if they're making those kinds of phone calls.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, one of the big questions, Jamil, has been, what could Attorney General Merrick Garland do after all of these hearings?

  He has said before he is watching, federal prosecutors are watching. Does the committee's decision to subpoena former President Trump change that calculation in any way?

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Well, it could change in a couple of ways, right?

  If the president does come and testify before Congress, there's a lot of jeopardy he could be in, right? He could run himself into lying under oath, right? He could create all sorts of legal trouble for himself. So, almost, certainly, his lawyers will tell him, don't go. And if you do go, take the Fifth Amendment, assert executive privilege, right?

  The president, though, if he decides to go testify before Congress, former president, he is unlikely to do that. He's likely to try and put on a defense, to put himself out there in front of the American people to say, I wasn't wrong. The election was stolen, the things he's said on Twitter or TRUTH Social now, right?

  And so we will see how this plays out. It's not obvious to me that he won't in fact, testify.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Mary, what do you make of this? Are we likely to hear from the president, former president, in this way?

• Mary McCord:

  He's been saying all along: I haven't had a chance to give my side of the story.

  And so I agree with Jamil. Like, his lawyers will tell him, don't do this. It's not only jeopardy that he may make false statements and things like that, have more evidence of obstruction, but he also will — if he testifies, will waive some of those privileges. And so then he won't be able to just draw the lines that he might want to draw.

  So I think that — I think we will — just remain to be seen. He may — he may decide in the middle of the night to tweet out: I'm going to testify.

  I mean, that wouldn't surprise me.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I also wanted to ask you about something else I know you pay close attention to, which is ongoing threats to democracy.

  Early on and throughout the hearings, the committee has messaged that those ongoing threats are a central part of their work and why they're doing this work right now. What did you hear in today's hearing? Also pooling together the last eight hearings, what did you hear that tells you about how serious those threats are and what can be done to address them?

• Mary McCord:

  Well, I think what you just played at the top of the hour with Liz Cheney talking about our institutions held because of the good men and women of good faith who made them hold.

  And what we know now is that, throughout 2020, 2021, even before the elections, we had lies, falsehoods, disinformation about a stolen election, even before the election, and we learned that today, and we knew that before, but we were — had that confirmed today.

  That's what was driving then the violence. And we know, from things like what Roger Stone said even before Election Day, "F the vote, we — let's get right to the violence," right, violence was always a possibility.

  That has continued. And our institutions held because, as Liz Cheney said, the men and women in places like local election officials, state election officials, governors, secretaries of states, right, they refused to capitulate to the president's wishes.

  But, right now, we have a continuance of the disinformation. We have Donald Trump continuing, doubling down, tripling down on the stolen election from almost two years ago, again fueling violence.

  And I will just give you an example. The strategy which has been spread across extremist social media is county over country. Take your county. Take a few. Capture your state. We need a decentralized, Christian nationalist political movement.

  And that's what we're seeing. We see at the local level threats to election officials, threats to county board members, public health officials, teachers. They're leaving the office. They're being replaced by election deniers. We have election deniers who are running for office, including in positions who will have responsibility over the next election.

  And that is — that's the kind of threat that I think Liz Cheney was foreshadowing.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jamil, when you look back over all nine hearings, the committee set out with some big goals, right? It was set the historical record, but also hold people accountable for what happened on January 6.

  Did they meet their goals?

• Jamil Jaffer:

  Well, certainly, Amna, I think the committee laid out a very credible argument for the case that the president knew what was happening on January 6, knew what was likely to happen, and he encouraged it to happen.

  I think the committee has had a slam dunk on that front, that there was no question the president wanted the things that happened on January 6 to take place, and that he bears responsibility for that.

  The question, though, is, will it matter at all, right? Will the American electorate care, right? How does the American electorate feel about what happened, what led up to those days, and what happened that day?

  And what really this turns out is, what does the Republican Party do? Donald Trump will almost certainly be a candidate for the Republican Party nomination. And the question is, what do Republicans do, being the party of national security, being the party of law enforcement and those type of things, and a party that believes that elections, legitimate elections, and attempts to fight against voter fraud, right?

  What do they do when they have a president who leads — or former president who's leading their party who denies the results of an election, continues to tell stories of election fraud, and encouraged an insurrection at the Capitol?

• Amna Nawaz:

  What will they do? What will the American public do? And also watching what the Department of Justice will do, if anything, right?

  Jamil Jaffer, Mary McCord, on this ninth hearing, public hearing, by the January 6 Select Committee, thank you so much for joining us.

  And you can watch today's entire hearing on our Web site, that is PBS.org/NewsHour, and on our YouTube page.