The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol made it clear that Thursday’s public hearing will take place at 8 p.m. June 9.
The committee stated that they would “present previously unseen materials documenting January 6th”, receive witness testimony, view additional hearings, and give the American people a summary about its findings regarding the coordinated multi-step effort by the American people to overturn the results from the 2020 presidential election, and prevent the transfer to power.”
According to the committee, additional information regarding witnesses will be made public next week. The witnesses have not been publicly revealed by the panel. A panel aide said that they have interviewed more than 900 witnesses during the 10-month investigation, and received close to 104,000 documents.
CBS News was informed by a Trump aide that the former President Donald Trump would likely provide a counterresponse. Some of these statements could be distributed via his “Truth Social” platform. According to the aide, they will probably be more general than real-time quick response.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, was the committee chair. She stated in May that they would “use a combination witness, exhibits and things that we have through the tensof thousands of exhibits that we’ve seen, as well the hundreds of witnesses that we deposed or just spoke to.”
The committee is not holding this hearing for the first time. A public hearing was held in July 2021 and featured testimony by officers who defended the Capitol against the mob on January 6, 2020. As the committee finishes its investigation, the June 9 hearing will be the first of nine scheduled hearings. Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee, stated to CBS News’ “Red & Blue” in May that the committee had divided the report into chapters “that will allow the unfolding” of the story.
The nine-member committee was created by Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, almost a year ago to investigate Jan. 6, 2021’s attack. It is comprised of seven Democrats, two Republicans and two Democrats. In the beginning, she had hoped to establish an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. However, the Senate Republicans stopped the bill.
Thompson stated in May that the committee would release its complete report on its findings early in fall.
Numerous subpoenas have been issued by the committee to Trump’s allies, former White House officials and campaign aides as well as individuals involved in planning the rally that took place outside the White House. This was before the Capitol building was under siege. For refusing to obey subpoenas, four Trump supporters, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, the former White House chief-of-staff, and Dan Scavino, the Justice Department have charged Bannon. They all claimed they were following Trump’s instructions, claiming executive privilege.
On January 6, thousands of Trump supporters poured into the Capitol to witness Congress counting the electoral votes. This was a ceremonial last step in Mr. Biden’s victory. Five people were killed and hundreds more were arrested during the riot. Trump encouraged his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” during the rally at Ellipse just before the electoral vote count. He was then impeached by Congress for inciting the riot, but later was acquitted of the charges by the Senate.
This report was contributed by Rebecca Kaplan, Nikole Kaillion, and Zak Hudak.
