Before the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Insurrection at U.S. Capitol, two panels of witnesses in person will testify in public before it Monday. The panel continues to argue that former President Donald Trump is responsible for the deadly Riot.
Monday morning, the committee announced that Bill Stepien (the campaign manager for former President Donald Trump) will not be appearing at today's hearing due to "a family emergency." The session will be delayed by 30-45 minutes from the 10 a.m. scheduled start.
NPR is told by a source familiar with the situation that Stepien was prevented from testifying because of a family emergency. His wife had gone into labor.
Today's hearing will focus on "the decision of the former president to ignore voters, declare victory in election he lost and spread fraud claims, then ignore the rulings by the courts when they didn't go his direction," House select committee aides said to reporters on Sunday. They said the hearing will focus on "the political apparatus to drive fundraising" that brought in hundreds of million of dollars between Election Day, Jan. 6, and now.
They also stated that the committee would present "a lot" of new information, aEUR," primarily in the form of records and depositions.
The committee announced that Stepien would not be testifying Monday morning and said that his counsel would instead appear to make a statement. A source familiar with the situation said that video clips of Stepien’s testimony will be shown at the hearing.
From July 2020 to the election, Stepien was Trump’s campaign manager. After his work on the 2016 Trump campaign, Stepien was previously the deputy campaign manager. Stepien was scheduled to appear under subpoena. Stepien was one of approximately 100 people subpoenaed by the panel over its almost 11-month investigation.
Chris Stirewalt (ex-political director, Fox News Digital) will testify.
Ben Ginsberg is the veteran GOP election lawyer. He was vocal against Trump's election lies long before the 2020 election. BJay Pak, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, will be his witness. This is after the recording of a phone call in which Trump urged state officials in Georgia "find enough votes" to defeat President Biden. Trump used the term "never Trump U.S. Attorney" in Georgia during the phone call. However, he did not explicitly refer to Pak.
Al Schmidt, a former Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia, will also be present. He was outspoken during the weeks and days following the election to defend the city's handling of the vote. Trump's allies made unfounded claims of fraud and legal action that did not show widespread problems with the count. After acknowledging that their claim that Republican observers were barred from the city’s ballot-counting venue had been false, a Trump campaign case was dismissed by the federal judge appointed by George W. Bush.
On Thursday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the panel chairperson, stated that Trump was the centre of the conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from him. He then "sparked a mob domestic enemies of Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American Democracy."
According to committee aides, Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat Representative will be a major part of the second presentation. The meeting will last approximately two hours, with a 10-minute break between the panels.
The presentation will follow a chronological order aEUR" beginning on Election Day, ending on Election Night and continuing through January 6.
The panel will release a detailed report in September on its findings.
The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. ET on NPR.org. ET on NPR.org. NPR will broadcast live coverage of the hearings. Listen to the hearings live on NPR One or your local station.
