House committee sets public hearing on attack on U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON — The first public hearing this year on the investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol during the counting of electoral ballots for president in 2021 will be held at 8 p.m. on June 9, the House Jan. 6 committee announced Thursday.

The hearing will be televised from the Cannon House Office Building. But the witnesses will not be announced until next week, the committee said.

“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multistep effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the announcement said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a committee member who also led the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in February 2021, said in recent interviews that the committee has uncovered acts of crime and promised surprising findings.

“The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House,” Raskin said in late April at an event hosted by Georgetown University's Center on Faith and Justice in Washington.

The committee, composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, plans a series of hearings in June to lay out a narrative and present evidence and testimony about efforts by loyalists to former President Donald Trump to block President Joe Biden from taking office.

The exact number of hearings, their timing and the witnesses who will appear are still being discussed by the committee.

CNN reported Thursday that the committee has invited Michael Luttig, a conservative and former federal judge, and Greg Jacob, chief counsel for former Vice President Mike Pence, and issued a subpoena to Marc Short, the former chief of staff for Pence, to appear at hearings.

The committee has been conducting its investigation for the past year, after House Democrats and two Republicans voted to create the panel, formally called the Select Committee to Investigate The January 6th Attack On The United States Capitol.

Since then, it has conducted more than a thousand depositions and interviews, with more scheduled, received nearly 140,000 documents and is following up on 472 tips from the committee’s tip line.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) chairs the committee, which includes Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — the only two Republicans to vote to create the committee.

The first hearing, held on July 27 last year, featured two U.S. Capitol Police officers and two members of the Washington, D.C., police, who described the violence and their pain as Trump loyalists overran and damaged the Capitol building.

Nearly 850 people have been charged in the breaching of the Capitol. Four people in the crowd of Trump supporters died, including Ashli Babbitt, who was shot as she tried to enter the House chamber. Five police officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 later died.