The third hearing of the month will look at efforts by Trump to get his vice president to try to overturn the 2020 election.
- Former President Donald Trump has rejected the findings of the public hearings, calling the committee “treasonous”.
- The first two public hearings this month by the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack have focused on Trump’s alleged role in the 2021 riots.
- A hearing set for Wednesday that aimed to examine Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to validate his election fraud claims was postponed.
- Thursday’s hearing will focus on Trump’s push to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 elections.
Here are the latest updates:
What can the committee do?
The panel has no prosecutorial power, meaning it cannot charge people with crimes. But the committee can make recommendations to the US Justice Department to indict potential suspects.
Democrats are also saying they want to present their findings to the public, so Americans can make a judgment as to what transpired on January 6, 2021.
Pence confidants to testify
The hearing will feature testimonies from Pence confidants who are expected to detail how the former vice president dealt with the pressure to interfere with the election certification process.
Greg Jacob, former counsel to Pence, and J Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals judge and informal adviser to the ex-vice president, will testify at the third hearing, the panel said.
Hearing ➡️ tomorrow at 1:00pm
Witnesses:
• Mr. Greg Jacob, Former Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence
• The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and informal advisor to Mike Pence— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 15, 2022
Hearing to focus on Trump’s effort to pressure Pence
Thursday’s hearing will focus on Trump’s push to pressure Pence to overturn the 2020 elections.
Trump had aired out those efforts publicly early in 2021, appearing to believe that the vice president could halt the certification of the election results.
“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump told supporters on January 6, 2021 before they marched on the Capitol building.
Panel releases video of Capitol tour by Republican
The panel has released a video of a tour led by a Republican lawmaker the day before the attack, showing participants taking photos of stairwells and tunnels in the Capitol complex.
The panel released the footage as it renewed calls for Georgia Representative Barry Loudermilk to speak to the committee about the tour. Loudermilk has so far declined the interview and denied any wrongdoing.
Read more here.
‘Treasonous’: Trump rebukes hearings
Trump has rejected the findings of the public hearings calling the committee “treasonous”.
In a 12-page statement earlier this week, the former president rehashed his false election fraud allegations and accused lawmakers on the panel of pushing to distract from what he called the “rigged and stolen” 2020 vote.
He also said the committee is presenting its own witnesses “without any opposition, cross-examination, or rebuttal evidence”.
Read more here.
Key takeaways from last hearing
The second hearing of the month focused on US officials and ex-aides telling former President Donald Trump that his 2020 election fraud claims were false.
Former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said in a video played on Monday that he told Trump repeatedly that the claims were unfounded, but each time the Justice Department would dismiss one fraud allegation, the former president would bring up another one.
“I told him flat-out that much of the information he’s getting is false and/or just not supported by the evidence,” Donoghue said.
Read the key takeaways from the hearing on Monday, June 13 here.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s live coverage of a United States congressional committee’s public hearing on its inquiry into the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot.
