The House committee’s formal time hearing on Thursday will provide the most compelling evidence yet of then-President Donald Trump’s “abandonment of duty” on the January 6 uprising, with the New witness details his failure to stop an angry mob from storming the Capitol, committee members said Sunday.
“This will open everyone’s eyes,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the House committee investigating the riots who will help lead Thursday’s session with the House of Representatives. Congressman Elaine Luria, D-Va. “The president did nothing.”
After a year-long investigation, the House panel on January 6 is looking to wrap up what could be their final hearing, even as their investigation continues to heat up.
The committee said it continues to receive new evidence every day and has not ruled out additional hearings or interviews with a range of others close to the president. One such figure is Steve Bannon, whose trial begins this week on contempt charges against Congress for refusing to comply with a House committee subpoena.
The commission also issued an extraordinary subpoena last week to the Secret Service to release documents by Tuesday between January 5 and January 6, 2021, following conflicting reports about the whether they are deleted or not.
But panel members said Thursday’s hearing would be the most specific to date in bringing together and incorporating previously known details of how Trump’s actions contravene his obligations. his constitutional law to stop the January 6 riots. Unlike members of the public, who are generally under no obligation to act to prevent crime, the Constitution requires the president to be “concerned that the laws are faithfully enforced.”
“The Commander-in-Chief is the only person in the Constitution with a clearly stated mandate to ensure that laws are faithfully enforced,” Luria said. “I consider it a senseless act. (Trump) did not act. He has an obligation to act.”
Thursday’s hearing will be the first in prime time since the June 9 premiere, which is estimated to be watched by 20 million people.
Luria said the hearing will highlight additional testimony from White House counsel Pat Cipollone and other, never-seen-before witnesses, “who will add a lot of value and information to the events of the times.” that important point on January 6th.” She cited Trump’s inaction that day for more than three hours, along with a tweet later that afternoon criticizing Vice President Mike Pence for his lack of courage to contest Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the election. The 2020 presidential election may have knocked the crowd out.
“We’re going to go through quite a few minutes in that timeframe, from when he’s off stage at the Ellipse, back in the White House and actually sitting in the White House, in the dining room, with his advisers urging him on. Luria said.
The hearing comes at a critical time for the panel, which is racing to compile the findings for a final report this fall. The committee initially expected at this point to conclude much of its investigation with a final hearing but is currently considering possible options for additional interviews and hearings, said council members.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif, said: “This investigation is very much going on. “The fact that a series of hearings will be concluded this Thursday does not mean that our investigation is over. It is very active, new witnesses are being introduced, information is available. upcoming additions.”
For example, the commission took the rare step of last week to issue a subpoena to the Secret Service, an agency of the executive branch. That came after it received a closed-door meeting from the Department of Homeland Security watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted the messages from around January 6, according to two people familiar with the matter. .
The discovery raised the surprising prospect of lost evidence that could shed more light on Trump’s actions during the uprising, particularly after earlier testimony about the confrontation with security when he tried to Join supporters at the Capitol.
“That’s what we have to get to the bottom,” said Luria, referring to possible missing texts. “Where are these text messages? Is it possible to recover them? And we have subpoenaed them because they are legal files that we need to see for the committee.”
Luria has spoken on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Lofgren on ABC’s “This Week,” and Kinzinger appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
