The House of Representatives committee that investigates the bloody assault on Capitol Hill by thousands of Donald Trump supporters on January 6, 2021 will present "the never seen before" of the case in its first live televised public session, next Thursday. It will be at 8 pm on the East Coast, prime time. There will be another seven sessions in the following weeks, always in prime time, and then the committee will have to issue its conclusions... at some point before the mid-term elections on November 8, in which the entire Lower House will be renewed and a third of the Senate. The 6-E enters the campaign.
The televised hearings will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, triggered by the filing of documents at the Democratic Party offices in the Watergate building on June 17, 1972. The following year, a Senate committee held interrogations about the case that millions of Americans followed on television.
The live meetings on the assault with which the Trump mob tried to forcibly prevent the ratification of Joe Biden's victory start with the idea of offering just "something similar to the Watergate hearings," says Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, one of The nine members of the investigative committee, chaired by Democrat Bennie Thompson and made up of six other members of that party plus Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, is vice president.
“The committee will present never-before-seen material documenting 6-E; you will receive testimonials; will preview additional hearings and provide the American people with a summary of its findings on the coordinated, phased attempt to overturn the presidential results and prevent the transfer of power," the commission announced in a statement.
Over 11 months, the nine parliamentarians in charge of the investigation have interviewed a thousand people related to the attack and collected more than 100,000 documents. Most of his findings, after dozens of closed-door sessions and only a few broadcast on the internet, have not been released or leaked.
The Axios website revealed Wednesday that a "blockbuster" witness is expected to appear at Thursday's hearing: former Judge J. Michael Luttig, who advised Vice President Mike Pence in the run-up to 6-E while Trump pressured him. so that, as president of the Senate, he annulled the ratification of the result of the presidential elections.
This week it became known that Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, called the secret service on the eve of the assault to warn that his boss was in danger because Trump was going to criticize him in public for refusing to annul the elections. It was prophetic, because on 6-E the mob asked to “hang Pence”, and the police had to take him out of the Capitol so that they would not attack him.
Justice on Friday criminally charged Peter Navarro, who was Trump's adviser on trade matters, for two separate crimes of contempt due to his refusal to appear before the committee and deliver documents on 6-E. The Prosecutor's Office, however, denied the Chamber's request to charge the same former advisers to former President Mark Meadows, Trump's last chief of staff, and Dan Scavino. The commission requested explanations from the public ministry and the Department of Justice, since both former counselors refused to cooperate with the body, as did Navarro.
