When lawmakers question witnesses on Capitol Hill, they typically do so in order of seniority. That’s why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent House Democrats despite being elected only last fall, was among the final members to interrogate former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in February. Unlike many of her colleagues, she put her allotted five minutes to good use.

Ocasio-Cortez quickly extracted useful information from Cohen about the president’s financial mischief before taking office. Her questions followed a pattern: First, is it true that Trump did Unsavory Thing X? Second, who else might have known that he did Unsavory Thing X? Third, where can we find more documents, records, and other forms of evidence that he did Unsavory Thing X? These lines of inquiry yielded valuable leads for Democrats to unearth whether Trump inflated his business holdings to dodge taxes or secure better loans.

Ocasio-Cortez was just doing her job; asking relevant questions of witnesses should be the baseline expectation for lawmakers during congressional hearings. Yet her concise, focused approach won plenty of praise from observers because too many members of Congress don’t do this well. They instead tend toward spectacle over substance, jockeying to make the best clips for the cable news cycle instead of extracting meaningful information from people who are legally obliged to provide it.

This habit is frustrating in general. But at a momentous time like Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress on Wednesday, it would be a historic blunder that could cause lasting damage to American democracy.

Congressional hearings are rarely the most exciting thing on television. There are occasional blockbusters, such as James Comey’s appearance after Trump fired him as FBI director, or the back-to-back testimonies of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. But those are the exceptions. Most Americans do not regularly tune into congressional hearings, even when they are relative blockbusters, and those who do so surely can’t be satisfied with the quality of representation that Congress provides.

