The Daily Fuckup

By Dec. 26, 2022, the Jan. 6 record was still expanding even though the calendar said the year was almost over. The House select committee held its final business meeting on Dec. 19 and filed its final report in the House on Dec. 22. That left a completed committee record in place just as the country was heading into the last stretch of the year.

The report mattered because it locked in the committee’s findings and its account of the pressure campaign around the 2020 election, the transfer of power, and the events that led to the attack on the Capitol. The committee had spent the year building that record through hearings, witness testimony, subpoenas, and document production. By late December, that work was no longer a live investigation in the committee room, but it was now part of the public and congressional record. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/117th-congress/house-report/692/1))

The Justice Department’s side of the Jan. 6 case was also still moving. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in 2021 that DOJ would continue to follow the facts and charge what the evidence supported, and that posture remained the backdrop for the department’s continuing criminal cases and investigations tied to the attack. In other words, the committee was done, but the legal work was not. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-investigation-january-6th-attack-capitol))

That left Trump with the same basic problem he had all year: Jan. 6 was not a single event that faded when the news cycle changed. It was a growing stack of official findings, court cases, and documentary evidence. On Dec. 26, 2022, the issue was still active because the institutions examining it were still producing material that could be cited, disputed, and used in future proceedings. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/117th-congress/house-report/692/1))

The political reality was simple. The committee had finished its work, but the story it assembled was still out in the open. Trump could try to pivot to inflation, immigration, or culture-war fights, but the Jan. 6 record remained part of the background noise around him. As of Dec. 26, 2022, the damage from that day was still being processed by the government, the courts, and the public.