Running Out the Clock

If the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection could get all the testimony and documents it’s seeking, the odds are that it would assemble more than enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing to result in prosecution and probable conviction of Trump and some of his prominent collaborators. These people know that this course of events will probably play out unless they can delay proceedings sufficiently so that no irreversible harm will happen to Trump or any of his loyalists before, as is more likely than not, Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives a year from now. American democracy’s survival may depend on whether the wheels of justice turn fast enough to keep its enemies from running out the clock.