What explains the persistence of performative congressional hearings when participants and audiences appear to recognize the limited accountability function?
Recent hearings involving senior administration officials have followed a recognizable pattern. Pam Bondi appeared before committees regarding the DOJ's handling of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed the House 427-1 and the Senate by unanimous consent before the DOJ released material with roughly 200,000 pages withheld and missed the statutory deadline. Kash Patel has appeared regarding FBI operations including the Butler investigation and the Epstein file process, despite having argued for years before his confirmation that he would release the client list. Dan Bongino, who took similar pre-office positions, announced his departure in December 2025 and left the bureau in January 2026, reportedly over disputes about the file handling. In each case the hearings generated viral content, partisan media coverage, and fundraising activity but did not produce prosecutions, removal through congressional action, or structural legislation. Bondi was eventually removed by the President rather than by Congress.
Specific members on both sides have built substantial public profiles around these moments. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's questioning sequences regularly produce shareable clips that circulate on left-leaning social media within hours of the hearing ending, are clipped into fundraising emails, and feature in subsequent media appearances. Jim Jordan's confrontational exchanges with witnesses follow the same pattern in right-leaning media. Ted Cruz, Katie Porter, Josh Hawley, and Jasmine Crockett have all built recognizable political brands substantially anchored in hearing performance. The structure of the five-minute questioning round, combined with the social media ecosystem, appears to incentivize this regardless of party. What is striking is the apparent shared awareness among participants and audiences: members structure questions for viral moments rather than information extraction, witnesses give non-answers that run out the clock, committee staff prepare both sides, the press covers the moments rather than the substance, and voters across the spectrum report low confidence in hearings as accountability mechanisms while continuing to engage with the content.
This pattern is not unique to the current administration. Comparable dynamics were observed in Biden-era hearings on the Afghanistan withdrawal and Hunter Biden investigations, and in first-Trump-administration hearings on the Russia investigation and impeachment proceedings. The Church Committee (1975-76) and Iran-Contra hearings (1987) are commonly cited as examples of oversight that produced substantive institutional outcomes, including the FISA Court and Inspector General Act in the post-Watergate period and Independent Counsel reauthorization following Iran-Contra. Hearings of the past fifteen years are more often cited for their viral moments than their outcomes. Political scientists including Frances Lee and Jonathan Rauch have argued that contemporary hearings function more as partisan signaling than deliberative oversight.
Most participants and observers across the political spectrum already understand that current hearings function primarily as content production rather than accountability. What explains the persistence of the format? Are the AOC, Cruz, and similar performance-style sequences continuing because they serve real functions for all involved (members get content and fundraising, witnesses get partisan loyalty signals, voters get tribal affirmation, media gets coverage) even when no one believes they produce accountability, or is there genuine residual belief that they still might? If the former, is this a stable equilibrium that no specific party or reform proposal could disrupt, or is it the kind of arrangement that eventually collapses under its own credibility cost?