Get the J6 band back together? Why would Dems and Never Trumpers want to relive that disaster?

By Gary Abernathy

Reunions can be fun, but do Democrats really forget how ganging up on Trump helped him rise from the ashes?

Reunions can be fun. Annual family get-togethers bring home relatives who may be scattered far and wide for most of the year. Class reunions every five or 10 years are enjoyable for reliving old memories with former school buddies and teachers. Catching up with former workplace colleagues to celebrate past accomplishments can result in a memorable evening.

Reunions can also have broader appeal, from a professional sports team reconvening to allow players and fans to celebrate that long-ago championship season, to the stars of a favorite TV show filming a reunion special to reminisce about their favorite episodes, to once-famous musicians literally getting the band back together for one more tour.

By contrast, abject failure is something people would rather forget. Few are clamoring for a sequel to “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” No one’s anxious to replicate the team-building models of the 2003 Detroit Tigers (43-119), the 2017 Cleveland Browns (0-16) or the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (9-73).

That’s why it’s head-scratching that there’s talk in Washington of reassembling the January 6th Committee, formally known as the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. In the long history of congressional committees, it’s difficult to think of one that was as embarrassing, ineffective, woodenly scripted and blatantly one-sided as the January 6th Committee.

And yet, there are apparently Democrats who want to relive the disaster. According to The Hill this week, “Democrats plan to hold a fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by reconvening the House select committee that investigated the matter.”

Digging into its bag of overripe superlatives, The Hill story claims that the committee “held a series of blockbuster hearings in the summer of 2022 that shed new light on the involvement of President Trump and his closest advisers in seeking to block the certification of the vote. The panel ultimately made a criminal referral for Trump and suggested he face charges under four different statutes, including aiding an insurrection.”

We know how that worked out.

Blockbuster hearings?

The so-called hearings were so tightly scripted (with the help of a former TV news executive) that members took turns awkwardly reading from their assigned teleprompters, not daring to veer off script. Ostensibly chaired by Democrat Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the production was actually overseen by Republican Liz Cheney (Wyo.) as part of her retribution campaign against Trump on behalf of her and her father.

Throughout 2022, the committee held 10 live televised hearings, with TV broadcast and cable networks initially interrupting programming as if something important was happening. Even leftwing TV execs eventually realized there was nothing to see here.

Remember Cassidy Hutchinson, the one-time aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows? She was billed as a star witness ready to unload some of that “blockbuster” testimony — “blockbuster” apparently meaning “stuff I heard other people say and it sounded bad.”

As I wrote at the time in a Washington Post piece:

The nation was presented a gossipy mess of “here’s stuff I heard that Trump did,” some of which was immediately refuted. … Most head-turning was Hutchinson’s hearsay account of Trump’s alleged rumble with his Secret Service detail inside an SUV on the day of the Capitol riot, wherein Trump supposedly first grabbed at the steering wheel, then made a “lunge” toward the throat of a second agent. Numerous news outlets reported almost immediate denial of the story…

Still, someone on the committee playing the role of skeptic could have perhaps challenged her on the details, as well as another episode wherein she said she personally heard Trump “say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away.” Her habit of couching her recollected conversations in terms of people saying “something to the effect of” leaves plenty of wiggle room for later revision.

Of course, absolutely no one on this “select committee” dared challenge any of the recollections of Hutchinson or any other honored guest, er, “witness.” That would have been off script.

Hutchinson was hailed as a heroic figure by Democrats and Never Trumpers.

“Cassidy Hutchinson might turn out to be the next John Dean,” Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as counsel to House Democrats, said at the time. Dean, of course, was the former White House counsel for President Richard M. Nixon whose Watergate testimony was key in leading to Nixon’s resignation.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Hutchinson wrote a book about her experience called “Enough,” which you can find here to get her side of the story.

Instead of destroying Trump, the January 6th Committee was so heavy-handed and biased that it likely ended up building sympathy for him. People forget that in 2022, many Republicans were turning away from Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was comfortably leading Trump among GOP voters in several national polls.

Democrats rescued Trump

But Democrats just couldn’t quit Trump. Their thirst for payback got the best of them. On the heels of the January 6th Committee came the federal and state indictments throughout 2023.

Trump was first indicted in March 2023 by the Manhattan district attorney on state charges related to a so-called “hush money” payment back in 2016. He was indicted in June 2023 by a federal grand jury in Miami for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House and storing them at Mar-a-Lago. On August 1, 2023, special counsel Jack Smith announced indictments against Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Any time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls,” Trump said after the Smith indictment. “We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment, and this election is closed out. Nobody has even a chance.”

Truer words were never spoken. Trump got his wish just a few days later when an Atlanta-based grand jury indicted him on state charges related to the 2020 election.

Republicans who were lining up with DeSantis suddenly rushed back to Trump, with Trump running up a comfortable poll lead and winning primaries, eventually reclaiming the nomination. Millions of additional Americans agreed that the justice system had been weaponized against Trump, and in November 2024 they voted to return him to the White House.

Here we go again. Democrats have been feeling smugly confident about their chances in the 2026 midterm elections. But if anyone knows how to grab defeat from the jaws of victory, it’s the Democrats (see 2024 presidential election).

So please, go ahead and reconvene the January 6th Committee. Re-litigate the Capitol riot. Bring up all the old accusations against Trump. Why not? It worked so well last time, right?

Gary Abernathy is an award-winning journalist and columnist with a long career in news media and politics, including as a contributing columnist for the Washington Post and a frequent analyst on PBS NewsHour. He is the author of “MAGA Republican Are Already Normal — And Other Shocking Notions.” Never miss an update from Abernathy Road, where Gary offers opinion and analysis about political and cultural developments.