But after the first few sessions of the hearings, the committee’s audience is clear, as is its strategy to change minds. These are hearings for Republicans, by Republicans.

Despite the GOP leadership’s boycott of the committee, it has relied almost exclusively on testimony from Republicans, conservatives, and those who were in former President Donald Trump’s inner circle to detail the attack and the events leading up to it. For Republicans who are following these hearings, the call is coming from inside the house.

The testimony has come from a far wider network than the Republican figures who have long since been written off by Trump and his loyalists as “RINOs” or Republicans in Name Only. The hearings have featured several segments from interviews with Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general. Barr testified that he repeatedly told the former president the election fraud claims were baseless, and that the Department of Justice had investigated and found no evidence of widespread fraud. “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit,” Barr was heard saying in a tape of his deposition played during the first hearing. “And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it, and that’s one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did.” While the two parted on bad terms over Trump’s incessant yet disproven claims of election fraud, Barr is a lifelong conservative who served under former President George H.W. Bush, and who was a loyal Trump ally during his time as attorney general.