Closing summary
The January 6 committee’s second public hearing was today’s main story, as it aired testimony from several of Donald Trump’s top advisors, all of whom said they told the former president there was no fraud in the 2020 election that would change the result of his loss to Joe Biden.
Nonetheless, Trump pressed on with making the claims, which the committee said fueled the violence at the Capitol.
Here’s what else happened today:
- Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber will vote on a bipartisan gun control bill as soon as it’s written. The compromise measure doesn’t go as far as Democrats would like, but represents the best chance to pass legislation at the federal level in response to the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.
- The supreme court released five opinions that dealt with a number of aspects of federal law, though none of the verdicts were in any of the major cases touching on abortion, gun rights or other hot-button issues.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland said he is watching the hearings of the January 6 committee, as the justice department comes under pressure to bring charges against Trump.
- Separately, Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who was hailed for leading rioters away from the senate chamber, testified in the criminal trial of two men facing charges in the attack.
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At the White House daily media briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has reiterated in response to a question that Joe Biden is going to leave the topic of whether Donald Trump will be prosecuted over the January 6 hearing “up to the Department of Justice”.
The White House wants “Americans to watch” the January 6 hearings, the second of which occurred this morning, “and remember the horrors of one of the darkest days in our history” but the US president will stay away from commenting on related prosecutions.
He chose US attorney general Merrick Garland “because of his loyalty to the law”, Jean-Pierre said, and also “to restore the independence and integrity of the Department of Justice.”
That’s a dig at how the DoJ was regarded by Democrats as an extension of Donald Trump’s White House and under his sway instead of staying independent.
