Members of the House panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol have laid out their plans for hearings this week that will focus on testimony from former White House adviser Pat Cipollone, a plot by far-right extremist groups and discussions of using the military to seize voting machines.
The House panel has confirmed it will hold a hearing on Tuesday morning and plans to hold a prime-time hearing on Thursday, a source told Reuters.
And in a major development Sunday, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) confirmed that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon had offered to testify before the committee after former President Trump waived executive privileges.
Among the key issues the panel will present are unsubstantiated claims by Trump and his allies that federally authorized voting machines turned votes for Trump into votes for Biden.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told CBS “Face the Nation” guest host Robert Costa on Sunday that the American public will learn of a meeting on Dec. 18, 2021, in which Trump, attorney Sidney Powell, former Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and others discussed using the military to seize the machines.
“That day, the group of outside lawyers who were dubbed ‘Team Crazy’ by people in and around the White House came to try to push for several new courses of action, including confiscating voting machines across the country,” Raskin said.
Powell and Trump’s legal team took aim at Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines, accusing them without evidence of illegally switching votes to swing the election for Biden.
Both Smartmatic and Dominion have taken legal action against those who spread lies about their machines on Fox News and other conservative outlets like Newsmax.
The House panel this week will also present new testimony from Cipollone, who was a key figure on Trump’s legal team on Jan. 6.
Cipollone testified behind closed doors on Friday after an explosive hearing late last month in which former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson revealed that Trump knowingly encouraged armed rebels to march on the US Capitol.
Hutchinson also testified that Trump jumped behind the wheel to steer his vehicle toward the Capitol so he could join the protesters, though Secret Service agents reportedly personally disputed that account.
Hutchinson said Cipollone warned that “we will be charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump marches outside the Capitol.
On Jan. 6, committee member Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that Cipollone’s testimony did not contradict other witnesses, although it was unclear whether he substantiated Hutchinson’s testimony.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), another member of the committee, said Cipollone rejected theories that then-Vice President Mike Pence might declare Trump president and opposed pressuring the Justice Department to investigate the fraud allegations with voters.
Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department and Pence to declare the election in his favor was the focus of two hearings held last month. The House panel also heard testimony from state election officials who described an attempt by Trump to pressure them into appointing voters in his favor.
“The overall message we’re gathering from all these witnesses is that the president knew he lost the election, or that his advisers told him he lost the election,” Murphy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“And that he was looking for ways to retain power and remain president despite the fact that the democratic will of the American people was for President Biden to be the next elected,” she added.
Tuesday’s hearing will also shine a light on far-right extremist groups that have mobilized at the US Capitol, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
The panel revealed in documentary footage last month that Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario and Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes – both of whom have been hit with the rarely used seditious conspiracy charge – met privately before gathering at the Capitol of the US on January 6.
Raskin said when he conducts the hearing on Tuesday, he will focus in part more on what those groups have planned.
Kinzinger told ABC’s “This Week” that Tuesday’s hearing will also show what Trump was doing as the unrest raged in the Capitol until the moment he finally tweeted the rioters to go home.
“The rest of the country knew there was an uprising. The president obviously had to know there was a rebellion. So where was he? What was he doing?” Kinzinger asked. “That’s at the heart of the leader’s oath. You’re sworn to protect the Constitution of the United States, you can’t pick and choose which parts of the Constitution to protect or which branches of government, and you certainly can’t you enjoy during it.
Trump has rejected the allegations leveled against him in public hearings, sometimes in real time, and few elected GOP officials have offered public criticism of the former president despite the damning testimony from their party.
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Still, Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Med.), a moderate who has long been critical of Trump, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that Trump’s influence over the Republican Party is waning.
“I’ve been talking about this for years and I felt like I was alone in a lifeboat. But now we need a bigger boat because more and more people are talking every day,” Hogan said on Sunday.
“I said that Trump’s influence on the party would diminish over time. It hasn’t happened quickly, but it has decreased dramatically.”
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