The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is scheduled to return Thursday at prime time to deliver what is a final argument in the case it has filed against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing the former commander-in-chief of a crime. of duty not to dismiss the aggression committed in his name.
To do so, the panel will put two Army veterans: Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, at the front and center of their presentation and questioning.
Mrs. Luria, the only panel Democrat involved in a competitive re-election competition, served in the Navy for more than 20 years and achieved the rank of commander. Mr. Kinzinger is an Air Force veteran who did missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the witnesses they plan to interrogate in person, Matthew Pottinger, who was a deputy national security adviser under Mr. Trump and the highest White House official who resigned on January 6, 2021, is a Navy veteran. .
In a preview interview of the hearing, which is scheduled for 8 pm on July 21, Ms. Luria said the panel planned to document in great detail how Mr. Trump did nothing for more than three hours as his supporters stormed the Capitol, raising ethics, moral and legal issues around the former president.
“The captain of a boat can’t sit there looking at the burned ship up to the waterline and do nothing to stop it,” Ms. Luria, invoking her experience in the Navy, where she worked on nuclear reactors. “And that’s exactly what he did.”
Key revelations from the January 6 hearings
Ms. Luria said the panel planned to get in-person reviews of what happened in the west wing on Jan. 6. Pottinger and Sarah Matthews, a former White House press aide who had resigned after the riots. He also plans to reproduce the recorded testimony of Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House attorney, and others to document Mr. Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6.
“We have accounts of people who watched him,” Ms. Luria. “There was no worry, anger, anguish. He didn’t bother about it.”
The committee plans to demonstrate that Mr. Trump had the power to call off the mob, but he refused to do so until after 4 p.m. that day, and only after hundreds of officers had responded to the Capitol to support the Capitol police force. invaded, and had begun to turn the tide against the crowd, making it clear that the siege would fail, according to the committee’s aides.
The panel also plans to show the results of Mr.’s video comments. Trump on Jan. 7 in which he fought to condemn the violence and promise a peaceful transfer of power, according to a person familiar with the committee’s plans. Plans to show the exits were previously reported by The Washington Post.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the committee, plans to chair the hearing remotely, having tested positive for Covid-19 this week.
The panel has already begun detailing some of its evidence of Mr. Inaction. Trump. Ms. Matthews told the committee that a tweet that Mr. Trump sent to attack Vice President Mike Pence while the riot was underway was like “pouring gasoline on the fire.”
Mr. Trump had tried unsuccessfully to pressure Mr. Pence, who was inside the Capitol while the mutineers entered the building chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” to reject the official count of congressional election votes to confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect. .
Both Mr. Pottinger as Mrs. Matthews has cited this tweet as a contribution to his desire to leave the White House.
“They were people who believed in the work of the administration, but that day, given the circumstances, the inaction of the president and some of the statements he made, they decided that they had been made, that they were going to resign,” he said. say Mrs. Said Luria. “That’s very powerful when you knew them directly.”
The committee has also said it received the testimony of Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr Pence’s national security adviser. He told the panel that Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, urged her father at least twice to end the violence, as did Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the U.S. press secretary. White House.
The panel has also posted text messages from Fox News hosts, including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and Donald Trump Jr., one of the president’s sons, asking him to do more to stop the violence that day.
“Anyone who came in contact with him that day and everyone who had access to it, for what they have shared with the committee, made a certain effort to try to get him to do more,” Ms. Luria.
At each of its hearings this summer, the panel has presented evidence that lawmakers and aides believe could be used to bolster a criminal case against Trump. The committee has uncovered new details that they believe could provide evidence of a conspiracy to swindle the American people and Mr. Trump’s own donors; revelations about his plan to present false voter lists that could lead to charges of presenting false documents to the government; and revelations about his plot to disrupt the electoral count on Capitol Hill that suggest he could be prosecuted for obstructing an official Congressional proceeding.
Although there are sanctions for members of the army who are abandoned in their duties, Ms. Luria said she wasn’t sure Mr. Trump could be charged with a felony as a result of his inaction.
Still, he said, Thursday’s hearing was expected to be a key point in a series of hearings during the months of June and July in which the panel presented its initial findings from more than 1,000 interviews.
The panel is expected to continue its investigation, joining its work in anticipation of the issuance of a preliminary report in September. The committee could also convene more public hearings, members said.