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Here's what we're expecting from the next January 6 Capitol riot committee hearing

Committee chair Bennie Thompson says America's democracy came "dangerously close to catastrophe". (Reuters: Sarah Silbiger)

Revelations from the Capitol riot investigations have been explosive so far.

Damning evidence about the January 6 attack on the Capitol building itself and the fallout from Donald Trump's debunked claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election have been broadcast live around the world, and there's still more to come.

Here's what we're expecting from the next instalment and who will be giving evidence.

Who are the next witnesses?

The committee says we'll hear from two "panels" in this next hearing.

The first includes: 

  • Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
  • Mr Raffensperger's chief operating officer Gabriel Sterling
  • Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers

Republican Brad Raffensperger is shaping up to be a key witness at this stage of the investigation.

The committee will review allegations that former president Donald Trump leaned on Mr Raffensperger to invalidate ballots that voters had cast for Joe Biden.

Just a few days before the riots, the Washington Post obtained audio of an hour-long phone call between Mr Raffensperger and Mr Trump.

It reported that Mr Trump alternately flattered, begged and threatened Mr Raffensperger with vague criminal consequences in an attempt to undo his election loss in Georgia.

But it was reported at the time that Mr Raffensperger pushed back, saying Mr Trump was using debunked conspiracy theories about what was a fair and accurate election.

Mr Raffensperger even shared this tweet at the time in response to Mr Trump's claims (back when the former president had access to a Twitter account): 

On the second panel is former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss.

She and her mother, Ruby Freeman, were caught up in a Trump campaign-led conspiracy theory falsely accusing them of pulling fake ballots from suitcases hidden under tables at a ballot-counting centre.

It resulted in a barrage of harassment, racism and death threats.

What else is on the agenda? 

The focus is shifting to how the former president and his allies pressured officials in multiple key battleground states with schemes to reject ballots or entire state tallies.

Mr Raffensperger is expected to testify about the pressure he faced from Mr Trump to "find" more than 11,000 votes that could flip the state's results.

Vice-chair Liz Cheney says that Donald Trump had "no factual basis" behind calls to overturn the election. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)

Democratic committee member Adam Schiff told CNN that the committee will hear from "courageous state officials who stood up and said they wouldn’t go along with this plan" to reverse the results.

Mr Schiff also told US media this week that the hearing will dig into the "intimate role" former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had in the plot to pressure Georgia state legislators and election officials.

That's where Ms Moss's testimony is expected to come in.

A Reuters investigation published last year describes their experience like this: 

"The story of Moss and Freeman shows how some of the top members of the Trump camp – including the incumbent president himself – conducted an intensive effort to publicly demonise individual election workers in the pursuit of overturning the election."

When will the next hearing be?

The next Select Committee Hearing kicks off from 1pm on Tuesday, June 21 Washington time.

That's 3am Wednesday, June 22 AEST.

It will be live-streamed via YouTube on the committee's website.

What's happened since the last hearing? 

In case you missed it, there was a big focus on Mike Pence last week.

The committee praised the former vice-president in former hearings for standing up to Mr Trump's demands to overturn the election, despite the former president being told repeatedly that his deputy didn't have the power to do so.

But it doesn't look like Republicans and Democrats are suddenly going to start getting along after these revelations.

Pence on Monday slammed Mr Biden for his economic record, accusing him of not keeping his election promises to the American people.

"The time has come, for the sake of the American people, for President Joe Biden to put our country first and put our families first and put America back on a path to prosperity built on American principles and ideas," Mr Pence said during a speech at the University Club of Chicago.

Have we heard from Donald Trump?

Well, he can't tweet. But he's had plenty to say on his own social media platform, Truth Social, about the latest hearings.

Over the weekend Mr Trump shared updates accusing the committee of "trying to create a fake narrative" that he was aware of his election loss and pushed ahead with attempts to overturn it anyway.

"This is completely false," Mr Trump said in a post online.

"I felt the election was RIGGED & STOLLEN (sic), have from the very beginning, & have only gotten stronger in that belief with time." 

Mr Trump also continued to call the investigation a "witch hunt" and said his correspondence with Brad Raffensperger as first reported by the Washington Post was "perfect" and "appropriate".

ABC/wires

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