WASHINGTON — The House Select Committee investigating what caused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is beginning a series of hearings Thursday evening by laying out its evidence of a coordinated effort to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election and keep former President Donald Trump in office.
“We can’t sweep what happened under the rug,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., plans to say in his opening remarks, according to an excerpt provided by the committee. “The American people deserve answers. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat, but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us: ‘We the People.’ And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people.”
Thompson and others on the panel have stressed that the hearings will not only cover the insurrection at the Capitol a year and a half ago, but also address what can be done to keep similar events from happening again.
