A PBS documentary released this week shows that the January 6 Committee used James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, to create a “miniseries” whose primary purpose was to create primetime propaganda that would reach the American public.
The committee was derided by critics as a “show trial” because then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rejected the nominees of the minority party, for the first time in American history, and appointed anti-Trump Republicans in their place.
Every single member of the committee opposed Donald Trump, and testimony was initially held behind closed doors, meaning witnesses were denied due process, since the other side of the argument was never represented, nor contrary evidence brought.
As Breitbart News reported at the time, the committee brought in Goldston as a consultant, despite his controversial history as the network’s leader at a time when ABC was said to have buried the story of the late billionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Goldston’s work for the committee was immediately apparent in the first publicly televised hearings, as committee members read their remarks from a TelePrompter.
US Representative Liz Cheney (L) gives an opening statement, with Chairman Bennie Thompson, during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 9, 2022. (Photo by Alex Brandon / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEX BRANDON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Witnesses were carefully selected to offer damning testimony — whether it was true or not.
In a remarkable PBS documentary, the January 6th committee admits the entire thing was a publicity stunt / fabricated TV production meant to manipulate the audience. Which is why they brought in the former president of ABC News [James Goldston]
“It was Goldston who envisioned… pic.twitter.com/R4oboenAnQ— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) January 31, 2024
The documentary presents Goldston’s involvement as part of an effort to organize the “trove” of material the committee collected. Ironically, the committee destroyed much of that evidence — making it impossible to verify, and compromising Trump’s rights.
The work of the January 6 Committee has been used in federal and state prosecutions, despite its one-sided nature, and despite legitimate legal concerns about the validity of its subpoenas, which, some argue, violated the terms of its enabling resolution.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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