Measured by the number of times he was quoted, Donald Trump played a fairly small supporting role in the action described in the Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday.
But as the moving force behind the ugly developments that the committee documented, he was plainly playing the lead.
The dramatic centerpiece of the hearing was a meeting in the White House on Dec. 18, 2020. Except “meeting” barely does it justice: This was a marathon six-hour scrum, roaming around the White House from the Oval Office to the official residence, between Team Crazy — Michael Flynn, lawyer Sidney “Release the Kraken” Powell and others still humoring the president and feeding him the tall tale that he had won the election — and Team Normal, government officials, mainly lawyers, still on board at the Trump White House.
