Of course, Thursday night’s hearing has been deemed stunning by all the people you’d expect to deem them stunning. The video that was the centerpiece of the night was indeed shocking, just because the events of that day were so shocking. But it didn’t add anything new, even if most of the footage hadn’t been seen before. Meanwhile, Chairman Bennie Thompson was a constant damper on what was supposed to be a pyrotechnic hearing — he’s not a compelling communicator, to put it mildly. On the other hand, Liz Cheney knows what she’s doing, and laid out a damning case against Trump. I thought the most useful portion of the presentation was the testimony from Trump insiders saying how the data indicated he had lost and there was no evidence of fraud — not that anyone is getting convinced one way or the other at this point. If this was the high point of the committee’s public work, it is, not surprisingly, not going to have much of an impact and certainly not going to change the trajectory of the midterms, as Democrats are hoping.
By the way, the most telling blow against Trump yesterday was landed by Trump himself, with this abysmal statement:
— Posting Trump’s Truth’s (@PostTrumpTruths) June 9, 2022
UPDATE: I made a change to reflect the briefing on the data came after the election, not before, as I thought.