The second public hearing of the January 6 committee is set for Monday morning, following an explosive opening prime time event hosted by the panel on Thursday.
With more than 20 million people watching the committee’s first presentation, the audience size is expected to drop for Monday’s event, mainly due to its 10am ET start time. But the revelations about the efforts of ex-President Donald Trump’s team to overturn the 2020 election are expected to continue, while more footage of the attack itself is released as well.
Monday’s hearing is expected to focus on the former president’s efforts to sow distrust in the US election system and the overall result of the 2020 election among a wide swath of the US population; Donald Trump and his team spent months spreading false claims about voter fraud, election fraud, foreign interference and a wide range of conspiracies to explain how the GOP president who swamped Hillary Clinton in 2016 had turned around in four years and lost Georgia, Arizona and Michigan to now-President Joe Biden.
The hearing is expected to be shown across the major TV networks, including CNN and MSNBC, as well as on numerous news websites and YouTube channels, including The Independent. The hearings will also be shown live on C-SPAN.
On Sunday, the committee released a list of witnesses who will testify during the Monday hearing, including former Fox News eidtor Chris Stirewalt.
Mr Stirewalt was on the Decision Desk as the network projected Arizona for Mr Biden live on Fox’s air during election night 2020, enraging Mr Trump and his team as it meant the sealing of his political fate.
Mr Stirewalt’s presence suggests the committee will focus at least some of its time on the efforts of the president to use right-wing media, like Fox News’s opinion shows and other channels like Newsmax, to spread his false claims about Dominion voting machines and a host of other election-related issues. Mr Stirewalt was fired from Fox News in 2021 among others in what was called a “restructuring” at the time by the network.
The ex-Fox employee offered a comment about the hearing on NewsNation on Friday, which was first reported by NBC News: “This is the first time in all of American history, that we really threaten the concept of the peaceful transference of power."
"Whatever the political interests of the two parties and individuals involved is, our real hope has to be that this is that this will teach us and help us to avoid these problems going forward," he added.
Also appearing before the panel on Monday is conservative lawyer Ben Ginsberg. CNN reported that Mr Ginsberg will knock down Mr Trump’s claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election, and also zero in on the former president’s unsuccessful legal attempts to challenge the results.
Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien will also appear, the panel said.
Additionally, former US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia BJay Pak and former Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt will appear, likely to flesh out the state-level efforts Mr Trump’s inner circle made to contest results in the key states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
This article previously stated that Mr Stirewalt green-lit the call to project Arizona for Mr Biden, and has been corrected. The Independent regrets the error.
