This time around, it was a nervous but determined junior White House aide named Cassidy Hutchinson whose testimony dominated the hearings. No one who watched Hutchinson can ever forget the imagery of a president leaving ketchup stains on the White House wall after he literally tossed his lunch in rage. More important, Hutchinson detailed the struggle in the president’s limousine as Trump demanded to be driven to the Capitol.

In the wake of Hutchinson’s testimony in late June, Secret Service agents—mostly talking off the record—belittled the accuracy of her story. But Thursday’s hearing presented a series of text messages from Secret Service agents underscoring Trump’s determination to join the insurrectionists at the Capitol. “The committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue,” Representative Pete Aguilar warned after presenting this material, “including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic.”

As the public hearings presumably draw to a close, it is impressive how much we have learned about January 6 despite stonewalling by Trump insiders. Cheney detailed the more than 30 recalcitrant witnesses who invoked their rights against self-incrimination. These Fifth Amendment insurrectionists included sleazy political consultant Roger Stone, unhinged former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and bizarro legal theorist John Eastman. That doesn’t count unshaven MAGA theorist Steve Bannon, who has been convicted of contempt for resisting a subpoena, plus Trump’s spineless last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who is facing his own contempt case.

Even now, there are enduring mysteries about January 6. For example, what did Trump intend to do if the Secret Service drove him to the Capitol? Why did the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies refuse to take seriously early reports of violence on January 6? And who planted pipe bombs at the Capitol Hill headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican parties on January 6?

What we also don’t know is the lasting legacy of the committee. So much depends on how Trump is regarded in the years to come—as the greatest threat to democracy in modern memory or as the once-and-future president? It also remains telling that only since the hearings began has Merrick Garland’s Justice Department dramatically picked up the pace of its multiple investigations of Trump’s lawless conduct.

As for the January 6 committee, it deserves the praise embedded in a line from the aftermath of Watergate: “This time the system worked.”