Jan. 6 committee postpones hearing
Hurricane Ian’s march toward Fla. cited for the delay
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol announced Tuesday that it had postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday as a hurricane hurtled toward the Florida coast.
The committee had planned to hold what was likely to be its final investigative hearing Wednesday afternoon, but members decided to delay it as it became clear that Hurricane Ian was churning on a collision course toward Florida, where it was expected to strengthen into a catastrophic Category 4 storm.
“We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path,” committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Sen. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement Tuesday. “The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”
The committee had not provided a specific agenda for Wednesday’s hearing, but Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said over the weekend it would “tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election.”
This week’s hearing was intended to close the series of public hearings the nine-member panel began in early June. Throughout eight hearings, the committee — comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans — sought to show the American public in great detail how former President Trump ignored many of his closest advisers and amplified his false claims of election fraud after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Some of the more than 1,000 witnesses interviewed by the panel — a number of them Trump’s closest allies — recounted in videotaped testimony how the former president declined to act when hundreds of his supporters violently attacked the Capitol as Congress certified Biden’s victory. But the committee has said its work isn’t done.
During the August recess, congressional investigators continued to interview witnesses, including several of Trump’s Cabinet members, some of whom had discussed invoking the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection.
Cheney had previously said the committee “has far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather.”
With only months remaining before it closes up shop, the committee is wrangling over how best to complete its work, with key decisions yet to be made on issues that could help shape its legacy.
The panel must still decide whether to issue subpoenas to Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
It has yet to settle on whether to enforce subpoenas issued to Republican members of Congress who have refused to cooperate with the inquiry, or what legislative recommendations to make. It must still grapple with when to turn its files over to the Justice Department, how to finish what it hopes will be a comprehensive written report and whether to make criminal referrals.
The panel is still working to break new ground with its investigation.
It recently had a breakthrough when Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, agreed to a voluntary interview about her role in seeking to keep Trump in office. That interview is expected to take place within weeks.
The committee also issued a subpoena to Robin Vos, the Republican House speaker in Wisconsin whom Trump tried to pressure as recently as July to overturn the 2020 election, suggesting that the panel tracked Trump’s activities long after the attack on the U.S. Capitol and his departure from office two weeks later.
Vos has sued to try to block the committee’s subpoena.
“Our hearings have demonstrated the essential culpability of Donald Trump, and we will complete that story,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee.
But the committee has debated whether and how to highlight certain information related to the attack.
Some members and staff have wanted to hold a hearing to highlight the panel’s extensive work investigating the law enforcement failures related to the assault, but others have argued that doing so would take attention off Trump.
And it has struggled in recent weeks with staff departures and is facing public criticism from a former aide, Denver Riggleman, who says it has not been aggressive enough in pursuing connections between the White House and the rioters.
The final stages of its planned 18 months of work are playing out against a shifting political climate.
Polls suggest that Democrats could lose control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
Trump is showing every intention of seeking the presidency again, and Cheney, who lost her primary in August, appears to be positioning herself as the party’s anti-Trump White House candidate for 2024, with the panel’s conclusions as part of her platform.