As far as “insurrection” is concerned, McConnell can cure any damage without undermining the seriousness of his message by focusing on a different I-word, impeachment. Yes, I know, nobody wants to go there again. But we need to go there because of the nature of the January 6 Committee’s investigation.

There is also the problem that the committee is regarded as illegitimate by much of the country. This owes to the blatantly partisan, norm-shattering manner in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi designed it. McConnell can try to fix that by working with Democrats and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on a reboot: Subsume the current committee into a bicameral and truly bipartisan committee, with jurisdiction to investigate (a) whether former President Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and (b) whether there is constitutional authority to impeach him at this point (that was a major but insufficiently explored issue in last year’s shoddy impeachment process).

This must be done for a number of reasons, but mainly because the January 6 Committee, without saying so, is trying to do the investigation congressional Democrats inexcusably failed to do when they impeached Trump last year.