Democrats had a slim chance in 2021 to keep Donald Trump from ever returning to the White House. Now that he looks likely to escape legal repercussions for his involvement in Jan. 6 until after Election Day and is the front-runner to become president again, some are worried they squandered it.
“The urgency of that moment was something that we should not have lost, and losing it made everything after worse,” a senior Democratic congressional aide, who asked to speak anonymously to be frank, told NOTUS, arguing the party should have pressed for a longer impeachment trial with witnesses while they had the spotlight.
The monthslong delay between the trial’s conclusion — after less than a week of proceedings — and the launch of a House select committee to investigate the attack “helped conspiracy theories start earlier and proliferate faster, it gave Trump’s defenders’ cover,” the aide said, and it made it so much easier for Republicans “to escape scrutiny for a bad vote that they knew was a mistake.”