President Benny Thompson (D-MS) attended the third of eight scheduled public hearings of the House of Representatives committee selected to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 16, 2022.
Sarah Silbiger Reuters
The House of Representatives’ election commission, which is investigating the Capitol riot on January 6th, said it would hold a new hearing Tuesday, “to present recent evidence and testify.”
The surprise hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Capitol Hill, was announced Monday afternoon. It was not immediately clear what new evidence the commission planned to uncover. The panel did not specify who was scheduled to testify.
Monday’s announcement came days after the commission’s fifth public hearing, which focused on how former President Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to help him cancel his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Earlier, the commission planned to hold seven hearings on the initial findings of its nearly year-long investigation on January 6, 2021, when a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol and sent members of Congress to flee for safety.
These hearings were originally expected to take place in June. But the chairman of the commission, Ms. Benny Thompson, said last week that the last hearings in the series would come in July, suggesting that the schedule has been changed due to new evidence.
Earlier this month, for example, the commission received unprecedented documentaries from a director with access to Trump and his family before and after the uprising.
The bipartisan commission has put Trump at the center of what he calls a coordinated multilateral conspiracy to undo the results of the 2020 election, which directly led to the January 6 violence in the Capitol.
Trump, who eventually left the White House after a term, denied wrongdoing while continuing to spread false allegations of widespread election fraud that form a central component of the commission’s case against the former president.
Vice President Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Said the committee’s last two public hearings would focus on how Trump illegally directed his supporters to the Capitol, after which he failed to take swift action to quell the attack after it started.
The commission has no power to bring criminal charges against Trump or anyone else, and it is unclear whether the commission plans to issue a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters that federal prosecutors were monitoring the hearings.
This is breaking news. Please check again for updates.
Add Comment