The Lawfare Podcast: The Past and Future of the Jan. 6 Committee

Jen Patja, Benjamin Wittes, Natalie K. Orpett, Quinta Jurecic, Molly E. Reynolds, Tyler McBrien
Friday, August 12, 2022, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

The Jan. 6 select committee has wrapped up its first spree of hearings, and it has announced a second set of hearings when Congress returns in September. The month of lull gives us a good opportunity to assess where the committee has come so far and where it might be going.

Benjamin Wittes sat down in Twitter Spaces on Thursday with Lawfare’s executive editor and host of The Aftermath Natalie Orpett, Lawfare senior editors Quinta Jurecic and Molly Reynolds, and Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien, who read questions from the live audience. They discussed what the committee has accomplished institutionally, what it has accomplished from an adding-new-evidence point of view, what the purpose of this next round of hearings might be, and what relationship this investigation might have to the Justice Department's recent spree of activities.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Natalie Orpett is the executive editor of Lawfare and deputy general counsel of the Lawfare Institute. She was previously an attorney at the law firm Jenner & Block, where she focused on investigations and government controversies, and also maintained an active pro bono practice. She served as civilian counsel to a defendant in the Guantanamo Military Commissions for more than eight years. She also served as counsel to the National Security and Foreign Policy Legal Team of the Biden-Harris Transition Team.
Quinta Jurecic is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post.
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
Tyler McBrien is the managing editor of Lawfare. He previously worked as an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a Princeton in Africa Fellow with Equal Education in South Africa, and holds an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago.

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