Jan. 6 panel prepares for prime time
Televised hearings about attack on U.S. Capitol to open Thursday night
Almost a year after the formation of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers are set to take their case public.
On Thursday night, Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., will launch a series of televised hearings featuring a combination of live witnesses, pretaped interviews with figures that include Trump family members and previously unseen video footage.
1,000 interviews
The hearings mark the culmination of an inquiry that has involved more than 1,000 interviews and reviews of more than 125,000 records. Taken together, the work represents the most comprehensive record yet of the deadly assault, and which panel members have come to believe stands out as only the most visible evidence of a broader plot to undermine American democracy — one that emanated from the White House.
To tell that story, the committee will draw on testimony from administration insiders, including a previously obscure aide who has given the committee a detailed reconstruction of meetings and movements in the West Wing. The committee also has video recordings of interviews with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, that some inside the process believe will make for gripping television.
But the end result of the committee’s efforts remains an open question. Public opinions about Jan. 6 and about former President Donald Trump have long since hardened into competing blocs, making it difficult to break through, even with primetime programming. The committee also has been bedeviled by a lack of cooperation from some Republicans — including some of those closest to Trump — leaving potential gaps in the evidence and an apparent deficit of high-profile figures willing to take the witness stand.
Up to the Justice Department
Legally, meanwhile, the investigation may have limited direct consequence: Although the committee can refer cases for prosecution, it is the Justice Department that will ultimately decide whether to file any charges.
Still, a criminal referral by Congress of a former U.S. president would be an extraordinary step. And whether it is taken or not, the hearings will represent a historic moment, one in which the committee unveils evidence of what it has described in court filings as “a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
“Either way, these hearings are very important in getting that information out there,” said Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as counsel to House Democrats for Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Opening argument
The first hearing is likely to provide the American public with an opening argument and overview of the events on the day rioters assaulted the Capitol, as well as the weeks that preceded it.
Lawmakers are also expected to focus on the ways in which Trump’s false claims of fraud continue to proliferate and threaten the integrity of future U.S. elections, according to people involved with the investigation who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. They cautioned that much of the plan remains under discussion and subject to change.
The witnesses set to appear at the first hearing have yet to be announced. But the committee will attempt to place the story of the violence at the Capitol in the context of a broader, multi-tentacled plot to overturn the results of Joe Biden’s electoral victory, with Trump’s involvement serving as the through line.
The hearings that follow this month — there are expected to be at least six — will drill down on particular aspects of that plot. Another hearing, for example, is likely to focus at least in part on alternate slates of Trump electors that could have been used to try to undermine Biden’s legitimacy, according to people involved with the investigation.
The final hearing is likely to be led by Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Elaine Luria, D-Va., and focused primarily on Trump: what he did, what went on around him, and what he said before Jan. 6 and on that day. A person familiar with the planning said the few remaining “bombshells” will come in the final hearing, though the person cautioned that the most notable piece of evidence against the former president — that he allegedly expressed support for hanging Vice President Mike Pence — has been reported.
The committee — which includes two Republican members and seven Democrats — is still finalizing witnesses. But the hearings are likely to feature senior officials in the Trump Justice Department and advisers in Pence’s inner circle. Investigators also have secured cooperation from relatively junior administration staffers who were witness to crucial moments.
People familiar with the committee’s dynamics said Cheney is taking an aggressive role in organizing the hearings. Members have debated over which witnesses should be featured, and several people involved said there was frustration among lawmakers that key final decisions had not yet been made.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, has sat for multiple depositions with investigators — more than 20 hours — and is expected to play a starring role in the hearings, according to people familiar with the matter. Hutchinson, people familiar with the committee said, has provided extensive information about Meadows’s activities in trying to overturn the election.
Meadows, through his lawyer, declined to provide comment.
The Washington Post reported late last month that Hutchinson had told the committee that Meadows remarked to others that Trump indicated support for hanging his vice president after rioters who stormed the Capitol on that day started chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”