WASHINGTON — The findings of an 11-month investigation into last year’s insurrection at the US Capitol will be laid out for the public in a series of hearings beginning next Thursday, and the House panel conducting the inquiry says it will detail how former President Donald Trump and his allies attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.
“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the House select committee said in an announcement.
The panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans has been focusing on how and why a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election results. The probe thus far has been almost exclusively conducted behind closed door and involved interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses.
The first public hearing is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern time next Thursday — prime US television viewing time — in an effort to give the investigation maximum exposure as voters are making up their minds about the November midterm elections and Trump is contemplating another run for president in 2024.
Despite having been impeached twice while in office and facing other investigations and legal challenges since leaving the White House, Trump continues to exert strong influence over the Republican Party. His GOP allies have dismissed the committee’s investigation as a political weapon to tarnish Trump and his party. Several Trump loyalists have been cited by the Democratic-controlled House for contempt of Congress because they haven’t complied with subpoenas for testimony and documents.
In court filings, the panel has indicated there is evidence that Trump and his associates may have committed crimes by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College count. Trump, then and now, has pushed the baseless claim that he lost the election because of voting fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts and some of his former top advisers.
At issue is whether Trump and his associates organized and incited the mob that stormed the Capitol.
The House committee can’t charge anyone with a crime. But Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has said the panel can make a criminal referral to the Justice Department and that could come when the panel releases a final report in a few months.
In next Thursday’s hearing, the committee is expected to provide an overview of what it intends to show, with a focus on events that occurred over the two-month period after Trump falsely declared he won the 2020 election, leading up to the siege at the Capitol.
Member statements, witness testimony, and video footage and photos will be part of the presentation. Panel members are working hard to lay out what they say are important new findings to a national audience in a compelling way, but it won’t be “a Disney production,” committee Democrat Pete Aguilar of California says.
Each hearing is expected to have a title or theme of its own. Thompson and Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming will co-chair the hearings, but other panel members will take turns leading the focus on different topics.
