The House select committee investigating the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 has announced a previously unscheduled public hearing.
The bipartisan committee, chaired by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, is examining precisely what caused a violent mob of Donald Trump supporters, led on by the 45th president’s “Big Lie” alleging electoral fraud, to storm the legislative complex as part of a misguided attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
In a surprise move on Monday, it revealed it would be staging its sixth and latest session at 1pm EST (6pm GMT) on Tuesday afternoon.
The committee had previously said it would not resume hearings until mid-July as it required additional time to review new documentary footage submitted by filmmaker Alex Holder containing previously unseen scenes of Mr Trump and his family shot on the campaign trail in 2020, as well as National Archives records and tips called in by members of the public.
Its star witness this time will reportedly be Cassidy Hutchinson, according to CNN.
Ms Hutchninson is a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who would have been at the heart of Trump administration decision-making on the day in question, although the committee has not yet revealed the precise theme of Tuesday’s session, giving security concerns as its reason for secrecy.
She has already spoken to the panel behind closed doors on three separate occasions, clips of which have been shown during earlier hearings.
In one such extract from her filmed deposition, Ms Hutchison was seen telling the committee about her former boss’s movements on 6 January last year, recalling: “I know that he was on several calls during the rally. And I went over to meet with him at one point, and he had just waved me away, which is out of the ordinary.”
The committee has so far used its sessions to demonstrate that Mr Trump knew perfectly well that he had been defeated fair and square at the ballot box by Mr Biden and that his claims of election-rigging were bogus, having been advised that they amounted to nothing more than “bulls***” by his own attorney general, Bill Barr, among others.
The panel has subsequently sought to underline his efforts to pressure his now-estranged vice president, Mike Pence, into subverting congressional procedure to his advantage and to cast light on the role played by domestic extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in leading the thwarted coup, in which five people were killed.
ABC, CNN and MSNBC are expected to focus their coverage on the hearings and many other outlets are likely to broadcast its proceedings on their websites and YouTube channels, including The Independent, which will also be liveblogging all the latest updates.
The hearings will also be shown live on C-SPAN.
