US Capitol probe skewers Trump but faces battle to sway voters

Committee number two Liz Cheney quoted a witness claiming that Donald Trump (right) had said vice president Mike Pence deserved to be hanged by the mob storming the Capitol

Americans were served up an engrossing night of television as a congressional panel laid out damning evidence of Donald Trump's culpability in last year's US Capitol insurrection.

Yet 17 months after the mayhem, the biggest challenge for the House of Representatives committee investigating the riot could be ensuring the brutal images of violence it played in prime time will pack the intended political punch.

"It's important the American people understand what truly happened, and to understand that the same forces that led to January 6 remain at work today," President Joe Biden said Friday as he was discussing the hearing -- a reference in part, at least, to Trump's transgressions.

Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards was shown being knocked unconscious and gave evidence in person about "slipping in people's blood" as the assault turned to "carnage."

Liz Cheney -- a rising Republican star until she refused to accept Trump's false claims of a stolen election -- carefully filleted every aspect of the former president's so-called "Big Lie."

Testimony from Trump's closest allies -- including his attorney general Bill Barr and daughter Ivanka -- underscored that he had been made aware again and again how dangerous his conspiracy theories were.

The night got progressively worse for Trump, who didn't lift a finger for hours to help quell the insurrection, according to the committee.

The challenge for Democrats -- burned by the lukewarm public reaction to Trump's two impeachments and numerous other revelations of misconduct -- will be to ensure that his latest calumny registers with voters.  

In a YouGov/University of Massachusetts poll in May, just 42 percent of respondents backed the drive to hold the insurrectionists accountable -- a drop of 10 points in a year. 

"So unless the congressional committee on January 6 comes up with criminal evidence that prevents him from running again, it is unlikely that the (Republicans) in both the House and Senate will go against him."

Meanwhile, the refusal by Fox News -- the go-to network for America's cable-viewing conservatives -- to air the presentation live and unabridged severely curtailed its reach among right-wing voters.

"Violent crime is making cities impossible to live in, and more than 100,000 Americans ODed on drugs last year. Why isn't there a prime-time hearing about any of that?"     

"The facts that the January 6 committee will be presenting will either offer evidence that the president of the United States directed thousands of his supporters to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College or it will not," Hernandez, who works for the Telemundo 51 South Florida network, told AFP.

One thing we know for sure: another pundit from South Florida was keeping a particularly keen eye on proceedings -- and he wasn't enjoying what he saw.

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