The US House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has its next session planned for Tuesday. Last week, it turned the spotlight on the pressure put on former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election. Not only did witnesses testify that the vice president didn’t have that power, as laid out in the Constitution, but also that former President Donald Trump and his team knew this yet continued to apply pressure on Pence to stop counting Electoral College votes.
Formed nearly a year ago, the select committee has been investigating the circumstances behind the Jan. 6 attack and those who influenced the more than 800 people who have been criminally charged in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. The committee has had two public hearings so far with at least three more planned for June.
When is the next Jan. 6 committee hearing?
The fourth public hearing is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, June 21, at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET.
How can I watch it?
Hearings will be available live on C-SPAN and the Jan. 6 committee’s YouTube channel. So far, it’s unclear if networks will carry the next hearings live.
What is the schedule for the rest of the Jan. 6 committee hearings?
After the June 21 hearing, the next hearing is tentatively scheduled for June 23 at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET.
What did the committee reveal in the first hearing?
The first hearing, on June 9, gave an overview of what to expect while also showing never-before-seen deposition testimony and footage from the Capitol riot.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee chairman and a Democrat from Mississippi, and Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee vice chairwoman and a Republican from Wyoming, spoke throughout the two-hour hearing. They revealed how officials from Trump’s administration didn’t believe his claims of voter fraud, how multiple Republican members of Congress sought presidential pardons for their roles in trying to overturn the election, and how, when the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” the vice president, Trump said: “He deserves it.”
The second half of the hearing included testimony from two witnesses: documentary filmmaker Nick Quested and Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards. Quested had been embedded with the far-right group The Proud Boys and was in attendance at a discreet meeting on Jan. 5 between the group’s leader at the time, Enrique Tarrio, and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another far-right group called the Oath Keepers. Tarrio, Rhodes and other members of their groups have since been charged with seditious conspiracy for their actions.
In his testimony, Quested also confirmed that there were hundreds of Proud Boys who were making their way to the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6 before Trump gave his speech that day, which was the catalyst for other supporters to move toward the Capitol, where Congress would be certifying Biden’s election win.
Edwards testified about the violence on Jan. 6 committed by the mob of Trump followers. She also spoke about her injuries on that day.
What did the second hearing tell us?
Monday’s hearing looked at the false claims made by Trump and his administration that the 2020 presidential election was supposedly stolen, which has been dubbed the “Big Lie.”
Video testimony from former White House attorney Eric Herschmann, former White House staff secretary Derek Lyons, former Attorney General Bill Barr and others, played during the hearing, showed those officials confirming there was no basis for the claims of election fraud.
Trump lost the election, knew he lost, yet continued to claim the election was ‘stolen’ and spread the Big Lie.
Watch the Select Committee’s hearing 2 recap ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/CQOXUKjLc6
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 13, 2022
Former US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia BJay Pak, former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt and election attorney Benjamin Ginsberg provided live witness testimony debunking the claims made by Trump and his administration. The committee also revealed the finding of its investigation into how the conspiracies about the election were used to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for pro-Trump political organizations.
“The select committee discovered that the Save America Pac made millions of dollars in contributions to Pro-Trump organizations including one million dollars to Mark Meadows’ charitable organization” pic.twitter.com/L0aJ1HeNwu
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 13, 2022
What was the third hearing about?
Almost the entire hearing on Thursday was about Pence. The committee detailed how the former vice president didn’t have the authority to stop the counting of electoral votes. John Eastman, an attorney who was advising Trump, promoted a legal theory of Pence having this power, although it isn’t established in the Constitution.
Greg Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, and former federal judge Michael Luttig testified about the powers of the vice president and their assessment that Pence couldn’t stop the vote count. The committee also played depositions from people on Trump’s staff who said the former president and others in his administration did agree that Pence couldn’t change the election results, even though some still applied pressure for him to do so.
In addition, the committee played the deposition of Eastman who pleaded the fifth more than 100 times during his testimony and had requested a presidential pardon for his actions.