The House select committee investigating the failed insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 initially only planned to hold six public hearings, according to a draft schedule, but has just announced its seventh.
Further sessions became necessary due to the sheer weight of evidence available regarding the deadly attack on the heart of government in Washington, DC, carried out by enraged supporters of Donald Trump attempting to overturn his 2020 presdential election defeat.
The next committee hearing will take place Tuesday 12 July at 1pm ET, the panel revealed in a tweet.
The news comes a week exactly on from the explosive testimony offered by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, who revealed damning details about the 45th president’s behaviour on the day of the riot.
Ms Hutchinson said Mr Trump had shown indifference to the prospect of his supporters turning up in Washington armed and had encouraged security to allow them to by-pass metal detectors to swell his crowd numbers.
She also revealed that he had attempted to wrestle control of a presidential vehicle out of the hands of his Secret Service detail when they stopped him from joining the march on the Capitol and had later thrown his lunch at the wall in anger.
The next hearing will reportedly focus on Mr Trump and his allies’ roles in luring thousands of supporters to the nation’s capital in time to take part in the riot itself, intended to stop a joint-session of Congress certifying the results state-by-state, a formality the president had demanded his deputy, Mike Pence, attempt to subvert.
Next Tuesday’s session will be another daytime meeting, meaning Bennie Thompson’s House committee will still host at least one more public hearing after next Tuesday’s, the panel’s lawmakers having committed to holding their final hearing during prime-time to allow more Americans to watch.
Overall, the hearings have so far sought to outline how Mr Trump pushed the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden’s victory at the polls had been achieved by fraud, knowing it to be untrue and conspired with associates to try to overturn the outcome in violation of federal laws.
“We want to paint a picture as clear as possible as to what occurred,” Mr Thompson told reporters last month before the proceedings got underway.
“The public needs to know what to think. We just have to show clearly what happened on January 6.”
The hearings typically last between two and 2.5 hours.
One of the committee members leads each of the hearings, but attorneys who know the sensitive material well conduct most of the questioning of witnesses.
Most of those appearing have been subpoenaed and attorneys have been showing texts, photos and videos to illustrate their case.
As we have seen, the content and schedule for the hearings may be subject to change but you can follow all the very latest updates on The Independent website, via our liveblog and regular breaking news updates.
