Thursday will mark the fifth recent public hearing of an elected House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Committee Chairman Benny Thompson said the hearing focused on former President Trump’s attempts to influence the Justice Department to help him cancel the 2020 presidential election
“Just as we heard today that Donald Trump was deeply involved in the scheme to pressure government officials to cancel the election results, on Thursday we will hear that Donald Trump is also the driving force behind the Justice Department’s efforts to corrupt,” he said. Thompson. during Tuesday’s hearing.
CBS News will broadcast the hearing as a special report at 3 p.m. East, hosted by CBS Evening News presenter and managing editor Nora O’Donnell.
Witnesses will be former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen; former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue; and former Assistant Attorney General Stephen Engel. Donohue testified before the commission that Trump had proposed replacing Rosen with former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
I said, “Sir, I would resign immediately. There’s no way I’m going to serve one minute under this man, Jeff Clark, “Donohue recalled, saying, according to a video of Donohue, which the committee played on Tuesday.
Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) embraces Wandrea Arshaye “Shaye” Moss, a former Georgia election aide, after she testified during the fourth hearing of the investigation on January 6 at the Cannon House office building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. Somodeville chip / Getty Images
Rosen, the former acting chief prosecutor, will tell the commission that the Ministry of Justice “maintains that the department was not represented without evidence of widespread fraud on a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 elections,” according to the testimony. obtained from CBS News.
“Some have told the former president and the public that the election was corrupt and stolen,” Rosen is expected to say. “This point of view was wrong then and it is wrong today, and I hope that our presence here today will help confirm this fact.
Commission aides said Thursday that the commission would claim that Trump failed only because the Justice Department’s leadership team threatened to resign. There could potentially be a video of Clark’s meeting with the committee, during which he pleaded for Petty.
In addition to Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to say there was electoral fraud, the hearing will also focus on Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to apply for or with Trump’s campaign to challenge the election results. commission officials said Thursday morning. The hearing will also look at how Trump wanted the Justice Department to send letters to the states regarding the inviolability of their elections, according to commission officials.
Threats of Trump to replace or fire the leadership of the Ministry of Justice – which was met with resistance from several senior leaders – will also be addressed, commission officials said.
Commission officials said the hearing would look into Trump’s efforts to appoint a special lawyer to investigate election fraud. He will also focus on efforts to put pressure on Georgia and US Attorney BJ Pack, who testified earlier this month.
GOP spokesman Adam Kinzinger is expected to lead much of Thursday’s hearing and questioning.
Tuesday’s hearing focused on the fraudulent voter scheme and the threats made to state lawmakers and election officials caused by Trump’s direct verbal attacks on them or more generally insisting that the election was stolen.
Former election official Shay Moss testified Tuesday that she and her family were threatened “all for lying” about election theft. With his mother and his colleague in the 2020 election, Ruby Freeman, next to her, Moss detailed the threats he received from Trump supporters over false allegations made by Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
“A lot of threats,” she testified. “I wish me death … Many of them were racists. Many of them were just hateful.”
On Tuesday, Vice President Liz Cheney said she thought Americans deserved to hear publicly former White House adviser Pat Chipolon, who was in the White House when Trump tried to influence election officials and encouraged his own vice president to try to thwart the presidency in the 2020 elections.
“The American people have not yet heard from Mr. Trump’s former White House adviser, Pat Chipolon,” Cheney said in his closing statement. “Our committee is sure that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Chipolon to testify here. In fact, our evidence shows that Mr Chipolon and his office have tried to do what is right. They tried to stop a number of President Trump’s plans for January. 6. “
Rebecca Kaplan and Rob Legare contributed to this report.
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