The Daily Fuckup

On April 13, 2022, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack was still in its evidence-gathering phase, pressing for records and testimony as it reconstructed the effort to stop certification of the 2020 election. The panel had not yet held its first public hearing, which would begin on June 9, 2022. For that moment, the work was mostly subpoenas, depositions and document requests aimed at fixing the timeline and identifying who knew what, and when.

The committee had already shown it was willing to use those tools. On Feb. 9, 2022, it subpoenaed former Trump adviser Peter Navarro. On April 6, 2022, the House voted to hold Navarro and former White House aide Daniel Scavino in criminal contempt after both resisted the committee’s demands. Those moves underscored that the investigation was not just collecting background material; it was using congressional powers to force compliance from people in Trump’s orbit.

By mid-April, the central question remained the same: whether the effort to disrupt the transfer of power after Donald Trump’s loss was a spontaneous scramble or a coordinated campaign that unfolded over time. The committee’s witness materials and subpoena activity showed it was trying to answer that with documents, not speeches. On April 13, the story was still the same one: the committee was building a factual record, and it was doing it one witness, one filing and one set of records at a time.