Jan. 6 panel abruptly sets Tuesday hearing
On agenda is “recently obtained evidence”; no further details given
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Monday abruptly scheduled a hearing for Tuesday afternoon to hear what the panel called “recently obtained evidence” and take witness testimony, a surprise move that touched off a wave of speculation about a potential explosive revelation.
The hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Capitol Hill, according to a news release issued by the committee, in which it provided no other details about the session. The announcement — and its sudden and secretive nature — gave way to a day of guesswork about what the panel might have learned, or whose cooperation it may have secured, to warrant upending a carefully choreographed hearing schedule during a week when members had left Washington to spend time in their districts around the country.
“BETTER BE A BIG DEAL,” John Dean, the White House counsel under former President Richard Nixon known for his role in the Watergate scandal, wrote on Twitter. “There was only one surprise witness during the Senate Watergate Committee hearings. On July 16, 1973 an unannounced witness appeared: Alex Butterfield, who testified to Nixon’s secret taping system — forever changing history!”
The Jan. 6 panel has held a series of hearings this month laying out the findings of its nearly yearlong investigation, but it had not been scheduled to have any additional sessions until July.
Still, its investigators have continued to gather evidence and record interviews with witnesses even as the committee presents its findings. At the end of each hearing, lawmakers have issued calls for more people to come forward and offer public testimony. And in recent days, the committee has indicated that it has gathered crucial new information that bears further exploration.
One key witness the committee has yet to hear from publicly is Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, the final White House chief of staff to former President Donald Trump.
Hutchinson has provided the panel with some of its biggest revelations to date, all made during videotaped closed-door testimony, portions of which have been shown or alluded to in previous hearings. She is said to have been present when Meadows described hearing Trump react approvingly to chants by his supporters to hang former Vice President Mike Pence. And she testified that a half-dozen Republican lawmakers who led the efforts in Congress to overturn the election sought pardons after the riot.
In recent days, the committee also obtained and has been poring over hours of footage shot by a documentary filmmaker who was embedded with Trump, his family and members of his inner circle immediately before, during and after the attack.
But pressed on the matter Monday, aides declined to divulge what additional evidence they planned to present Tuesday or who would be testifying.
The panel has yet to hear directly from Trump or Pence, although lawmakers have left open the possibility of calling either. The committee has also asked Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, to testify privately next month about her role in pushing for the 2020 election to be overturned.
Last week, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-wyo., the committee’s vice chair, publicly called on Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who pushed back against some of the most extreme plans to overturn the election, to testify.
Some of the most damning testimony the panel has received has come from people who worked directly for Trump, including officials from his presidential campaign, his legal team and the Justice Department.
Hutchinson was asked by the committee about Trump’s positive reaction to the chants from rioters to execute Pence and confirmed it, according to people familiar with the panel’s work.
Cheney has said the committee received testimony that when Trump learned of the mob’s threats to hang Pence, he said, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea” and added that Pence “deserves it.”