Jan. 6 committee announces last-minute hearing for Tuesday

WASHINGTON (The Hill) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol announced a last-minute hearing for Tuesday after previously saying it would pause its series of meetings until July. An advisory sent Monday said they would convene to “present recently obtained evidence” but provided no other details.

The committee last week said they would pause their hearings for two weeks given a wealth of new evidence. “We’ve taken in some additional information that’s going to require additional work. So rather than present hearings that have not been the quality of the hearings in the past, we made a decision to just move into sometime in July,” Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters last Wednesday.

The shift in schedule comes after what committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called “a deluge of new evidence.”

During its third hearing, the committee flashed its website on the screen behind lawmakers, with Thompson asking “those who might be on the fence about cooperating to reach out to us” through the panel’s tip line.

The panel’s investigators on Thursday also sat for two hours with British filmmaker Alex Holder, who was subpoenaed and asked to turn over video relating to his documentary about the Trumps, including interviews with former Pres. Donald Trump, his adult children, and former Vice Pres. Mike Pence. The footage was a significant get for the committee, as it includes an interview with Trump and Pence, with whom the committee has yet to secure an interview.

The committee was also expecting a new bath of documents from the National Archives. However, a letter from acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall, sent the same day Thompson announced the delay in hearings, says the new information would be released July 8.

The previous effort to delay hearings into July came after Thompson suggested the panel may consider adding additional hearings. The panel is still set to review the role extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys played in the attack, with another set to review Trump’s inaction despite scenes of violence at the Capitol.