There are many reasons why congressional Republicans blocked the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol and why they can now be expected to try to delegitimize the work of the House select committee the Democrats have set up to probe that horrific assault waged by pro-Trump terrorists. The GOP base has been enthralled with and radicalized by Donald Trump’s Big Lie—two-thirds of Republicans in a recent poll said they don’t believe President Joe Biden won legitimately—and Republicans in Washington are not keen to do anything that challenges the bizarro worldview of their Trump-holden supporters. (Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, has suggested some of her GOP colleagues are too fearful for their safety to risk antagonizing Trump supporters.) And Trump, who certainly doesn’t want an inquiry, remains the center of gravity within the GOP and a fundraising force for the party. Piss him off and that could mean a loss of many votes and many millions of dollars for the party.

But there’s more. There is no way to investigate 1/6 without investigating Republicans—or, at least, demanding their testimony. One major aspect of the 1/6 probe must be how the White House responded to the riot and how Trump that day and in the months prior concocted and encouraged the grand deceptions that fueled the seditious violence. And, as it happens, some of the most important witnesses to all this were Republicans. (Federal investigators also have been examining whether any GOP members of Congress were in contact with the pro-Trump mob and wittingly or unwittingly assisted the insurrectionists.)

A few weeks ago, I drafted a preliminary list of Republicans who ought to be grilled in any worthwhile investigation. I’ve now come up with a longer list. Here it is:

Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). He was Trump’s White House chief of staff at the time and can explain what was happening at 1600 Pennsylvania during the violent raid on Congress. That includes Trump’s own actions during the assault he incited. Was Trump really excited, as CNN reported, to watch the violent throng try to stop the certification of the 2020 election?
Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.). Ali Alexander, an organizer of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, says that he worked with this trio of Trump devotees to create an event on January 6 that would put “maximum pressure” on Congress when it was voting to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. All three members should be grilled under oath. (Biggs and Brooks have denied this.)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). The House Republican leader reportedly had an angry, expletive-laced phone conversation with Trump during the attempted insurrection, and Trump indicated he would not call off the rioters. What truly occurred during this call?
Kimberly Guilfoyle. On the night of January 5, according to Alexander, he spoke with Guilfoyle, a former Trump campaign official and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., and he suggested that she had encouraged him. What exactly did she say to him? Was she conveying a message from anyone else?
Caroline Wren, who was a deputy to Guilfoyle at Trump Victory, a joint presidential fundraising committee during the 2020 campaign, was reportedly involved in the planning of the rally near the White House that preceded the violent storming of the Capitol. So was Katrina Pierson, who was a national spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 campaign and a senior adviser to the Trump 2020 reelection bid. Pierson was a liaison between the White House and the conservative groups that organized that pre-attack gathering. How closely was the White House involved in that production and the subsequent march that led to the rampage? What did it and the organizers of these events know about the violent plans and inclinations of many of the attendees?
Roger Stone. Prior to the January 6 attack, Trump’s longtime adviser was repeatedly seen with people subsequently charged in the assault and accused of conspiring to mount the raid. In fact, several of them were providing security for him. Stone also worked to raise money for “private security” and equipment for events in Washington, on January 5 and 6, that preceded the raid on the Capitol. (Warning to the committee: Stone was convicted of lying to Congress. His three-year-plus sentence was commuted by his pal Trump.)
Rudy Giuliani. The onetime personal lawyer and dirt-digger for Trump—whose Manhattan home and Park Avenue office were raided by the FBI—gave one of the most fiery speeches at the pre-riot rally. “Let’s have trial by combat,” he urged the crowd shortly before large parts of the audience headed toward Capitol Hill.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. During the riot, McCarthy appealed to Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top aide, for help in stopping the assault, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) phoned Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, to ask for assistance. What do this royal couple of Trumpland know about what occurred in the White House while the Trump mob was ransacking Congress? Ivanka was in the Oval Office at the time. Graham, too, should be questioned about his call to her.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). As the riot on Capitol Hill raged, Tuberville received a call from Trump. (Trump apparently phoned Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican, by mistake while trying to reach Tuberville.) Presumably, Trump was reaching out to Tuberville about the ongoing GOP effort to challenge the certification of Biden’s victory. Tuberville has said he doesn’t remember all the details of the conversation. Really? He should give testimony.
Kellyanne Conway. The former Trump White House senior adviser called an aide who was standing at the president’s side while the attack was underway. What did she learn?
Kayleigh McEnany. Then the White House press secretary, McEnany was reportedly with Trump during the attack and implored him to speak out against the violence. How did Trump respond?
William Barr. Trump’s guard-dog attorney general refused to join Trump in barking false claims of election fraud. He told Trump in early December that the Justice Department had not uncovered any evidence to back up the president’s wild allegations of a stolen election, and this led to an end of their once-beautiful relationship. The House committee—and the public—should hear directly from Barr regarding what Trump was saying to him during the post-election stretch and what he wanted Barr to do.
Pat Cipollone. Trump’s White House counsel while Trump was attempting to overturn the election results, Cipollone ought to be questioned about all the schemes Trump was discussing or considering to defy the democratic process. Might Cipollone try to hide behind a legal privilege? Perhaps. But it’s worth a shot. Meanwhile, the committee should also haul in Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general after Barr fled, and Jeffrey Clark, who was a senior Justice Department official in the final days of Trump’s presidency, and ask them about Trump’s efforts to get Clark to find a way to invalidate the election results in Georgia and keep Trump in office.
Mike Pence. The former vice president was the target of some of the rioters, who called for him to be hanged. While in hiding, Pence received calls from congressional leaders who were angry the National Guard had not been deployed. According to the Washington Post, he “spoke with legislative and military leaders, working to mobilize the soldiers and offering reassurance.” He never talked to Trump during the attack. But Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, was in contact with the White House. The ex-veep should have a lot to say—and so should Short.
Donald Trump. Because it was his riot.

A thorough 1/6 investigation will have to include a parade of prominent Republicans, including House and Senate members, testifying to the committee. Can you imagine Pence being asked to describe what occurred to him on January 6 and his thoughts about Trump’s actions that day? Ditto McCarthy. The sanctimonious Barr testifying about Trump’s tantrums? Javanka—would they testify together—sharing details of Daddy Trump’s (reportedly ecstatic) response to the violence on Capitol Hill? Any or all of this could be devastating for the Republican Party.

Opposing an exercise like this was a no-brainer for Republicans. The issue now—as McCarthy reportedly is finalizing the list of Republicans who will serve on the new House committee—is how far the GOPers will go to sabotage and subvert the investigation. Okay, scratch that. We know they will go damn far. (Look at how they tried to turn the first impeachment hearings into a shitshow.) The question is, will they succeed? The Republicans will endeavor to block many, if not all, of these witnesses. (And there are plenty more witnesses who could be damning.) They will rant and rave about BLM and antifa to deflect and distract from the culpability of Trump and the GOP.

January 6 was a test of American democracy—and it managed to pass, with the system surviving the threat presented by Trump’s brownshirts. The next test will be whether Congress can effectively investigate that monstrous event. It’s an exam that Trump and the Republicans have an existential interest in failing.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

It’s not every recipient of this award whose prize-winning remark is probably lethal. But that’s the case this week. Appearing Wednesday evening on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, Charlie Kirk, the Trump-worshiping chieftain of the conservative outfit Turning Point USA, explained his new campaign against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. Vowing to conduct “a massive public relations campaign,” Kirk compared the effort to vaccinate people—especially young people—to an “apartheid-style...hostage situation.” He groused, “You can have your freedom back if you get the jab.”

Uh, what? Was Kirk saying that limiting the activities of people who choose not to receive the vaccination is akin to apartheid? It appears he was engaging in a strategic messaging shift for the anti-science far-right. Marjorie Taylor Greene had recently cited the Holocaust to oppose vaccination. First, she equated compulsory mask-wearing to forcing Jews to don yellow stars before “they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany.” Then, after apologizing for that comment, Greene did it again. Responding to President Joe Biden’s proposal to send health care workers into communities to encourage vaccination, she said this week that people “don’t need your medical brownshirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations”—comparing public health workers to the Nazi militia created by Adolf Hitler. (Fact-check: they won’t be ordering anyone to get a shot.) So first the Holocaust, now apartheid—what’s next? Right-wingers resisting vaccinations will identify with the oppressed Uyghurs of China? By the way, in case you forgot, Bill Montgomery, who co-founded Turning Point USA with Kirk, died of COVID-19.

One final point. Even as the Delta variant gains ground—especially in red states—Fox News has turned into a platform for opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Americans will probably die because of this. Rupert Murdoch, who received an early vaccination last December in Britain, is ultimately responsible. His Fox revenue is blood money.

Got a nomination for Dumbass Comment of the Week? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

What to Read, Watch, and Listen To

Joni Mitchell, Blue 50. One of the joys of parenting is sharing with your children your own cultural touchstones—books, music, movies—and seeing if you have any chance of shaping their tastes and perspectives. The odds are not in your favor. When my kids were young, I did try to nudge them toward some of my favorites. At one point, I made a glancing reference to an album called Blue. “It’s by this singer Joni Mitchell. You might like it,” I slyly mentioned to my eldest daughter, who was then probably about 12 years old. And I left it at that. Months or weeks later, I entered her room. She was listening to music on headphones, looked up at me, and said, “This album Blue by Joni Mitchell is pretty good.” Yeah, I responded. And I thought to myself, “Your work here is done.”

What goes around...The other day, that daughter asked if I had listened to the demos and outtakes released by Mitchell to commemorate the 50th anniversary of this groundbreaking and unforgettable record. I hadn’t. “You have to,” she said. And she was right. These from-the-vault treasures provide a glimpse of Mitchell’s path toward a masterpiece collection of songs that Graham Nash, her onetime romantic partner, describes this way: “It’s as if she tore her skin off and just released all her nerves into music.” These outtakes show that she made the right decisions regarding the final versions. (“River” did not need French horns at the end. The melancholic piano solo pierces deeply on its own.) Still, they are a wonderful celebration of one of the most consequential singer-songwriter albums.

That Nash quote, by the way, comes via an impressive interactive piece published by the New York Times to mark this anniversary of Blue. It features an array of musicians—including Nash, David Crosby, James Taylor (who played on the record), Renée Fleming, Mustafa, Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, Rufus Wainwright—commenting on the individual tracks of the album. It’s as if you were at a party with these folks (in Laurel Canyon) and someone put on Blue, and you got to hear all their stories and reactions. Nash’s remarks are rather poignant, given that several songs are about his relationship with Mitchell. About one track, he says, “I didn’t enjoy ‘Carey.’ It’s not fun to have your old lady off on some Greek island with another man. But I did get the kitchen floor done.”

Got any feedback on the above or recommendations of what I should be reading, watching, or listening to? Send them to thisland@motherjones.com.

Mailbag

In response to the recent This Land feature on the new Summer of Soul documentary, Greg Mitchell, who was my boss at Nuclear Times, an arms control magazine published in the early 1980s, writes to say that the explanation of what happened with the footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival that became the basis of this film is much more complicated than the sat-in-the-basement-for-50-years story. He digs into that in his fine newsletter.

In another issue, I recounted a memorable outdoors 1984 Bruce Springsteen concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, at which a few buddies and I huddled in the rain awaiting the show and Springsteen during the soundcheck performed “Who’ll Stop the Rain” for us. The question was—and I couldn’t recall the answer—whether the showers came to an end after that song. Stuart Sheinbaum writes: “My brother and I attended the same concert. During the sound check, Springsteen came out alone wearing a cap and sang ‘Who’ll Stop the Rain’ while the rain was indeed coming down hard. My brother and I were not under the roof but on the sprawling lawn surrounding the venue, standing on a cooler to watch. I can confirm that by the time he finished the song, the rain stopped and it did not rain for the rest of the show. I will also note that he opened the show with ‘Badlands,’ which was one of the few times that happened during the Born in the USA tour. The show was incredible and remains one of the best memories my brother and I share.” I wish my brothers had been there with me.

Regarding my skeptical take on the recent UFO report and AJ Vicens’ response, John Sweeney comments, “All of the recent discussions about UAPs [unidentified aerial phenomena] in this country are treated as something purely American. Ignored in this conversation is the fact that many of the Western Europe countries have been documenting and investigating UAP sightings since the 1980s. And it is taken much more seriously as scientific study in Europe as opposed to a curiosity in this country.” It appears with the release of this UFO report by the director of national intelligence that the United States is moving in that direction, too. Whether that leads to any greater understanding of what the heck is going on up there remains to be seen. The serious work in Europe has not yielded definitive answers.

Got something to say? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

Read Previous Issues of This Land

July 7, 2021: How The Summer of Soul counters the GOP’s season of hate; a debate on the recent UFO report; Garry Trudeau, American Dostoyevsky; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 3, 2021: Donald Rumsfeld, Christopher Hitchens, the Iraq War, and me; the perils of taking a home DNA test; Dumbass Comment of the Week; a Springsteen story; and more.

July 1, 2021: Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and perjury; Adam Serwer’s new book; Cézanne’s crime scene; and more.

June 29, 2021: How the new UFO report is bad news for UFO believers; my own UFO tale; HBO Max’s Hacks; an anti-racist anthem; and more.

June 26, 2021: Is Josh Hawley dumb or evil? (The answer is not both); Dumbassery that encourages mass “executions” in the United States; renowned guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson’s new tour and new book (and his claim regarding the best strings arrangement ever on a popular song); MoxieCam™ (before and after photos!), and more.

June 24, 2021: How an alleged 1/6 conspirator who called for executing Trump’s foes hooked up with a prominent Republican Party official; new Los Lobos; and more.

June 22, 2021: Why the GOP is pushing “political apartheid”; Ted Cruz wins Dumbass Comment of the Week; recommendations for an Apple TV+ series and a book on the curious origins of the universe; the first Clash tour of the United States (and being trapped in a van driven by a punk on acid); MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.