In what may be its final public hearing, the committee intends to present new evidence about the former president’s state of mind and central role in the plan to overturn the 2020 election.
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President Donald J. Trump speaking at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, just before the Capitol riot.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is planning on Thursday to present a sweeping summation of its case against former President Donald J. Trump at what could be its final public hearing, seeking to reveal damning new evidence about Mr. Trump’s state of mind and his central role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Armed with new witness interviews and unreleased footage of the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, the panel is planning to argue that Mr. Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud inspired far-right extremists and election deniers who present a continuing threat to American democracy.
Unlike previous hearings, which focused on specific aspects of Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, members will attempt to portray the entire arc of the plan, demonstrating Mr. Trump’s involvement in every step — even before Election Day.
The hearing comes at a pivotal moment, weeks before midterm elections in which control of Congress is at stake and as time is running out for the panel to complete its work, including an extensive report on its findings. Should Republicans succeed in their drive to win the House majority, they would be all but certain to disband the committee in January and shut down any official accounting by Congress for the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries.
To bolster its case, the committee has obtained more than 1.5 million pages of documents and communications from the Secret Service that include details of how agents blocked Mr. Trump’s attempts to join his supporters at the Capitol even after they had begun the assault.
The communications lay out how Secret Service personnel attempted to find a route to take Mr. Trump to the Capitol in a presidential S.U.V., and how those plans were ultimately rebuffed amid the chaos.
Secret Service staff initially attempted to accommodate Mr. Trump’s wishes, but supervisors at the agency expressed alarm, and District of Columbia police declined to block off intersections for his motorcade as a mob of his supporters began attacking and injuring dozens of police officers, according to the communications, which were described by two people familiar with their contents.
Robert Engel, Mr. Trump’s lead agent, broke the news to Mr. Trump inside the vehicle, prompting an angry outburst. Afterward, a Secret Service supervisor followed up to ensure Mr. Trump would not be joining the mob at the Capitol, the communications show.
The panel is attempting to refocus the country’s attention on Mr. Trump’s central role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, including how he encouraged his supporters to congregate in Washington; agitated them and directed them to the Capitol even though he knew they were armed and threatening violence; and then did nothing to stop the violence for hours.
The Washington Post reported earlier that the committee planned to use the Secret Service communications at its hearing. NBC News reported earlier that the communications obtained from the Secret Service surpassed 1 million in volume.
Among the documents turned over to the committee were emails, Microsoft Teams chat transcripts, planning documents, tapes of radio transmissions and surveillance video of the events at the Ellipse near the White House that preceded the rally where Mr. Trump spoke that day. The materials show documentation that some in the crowd had tactical gear.
The agency turned over the documents in response to a committee subpoena, which was issued after the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Secret Service, told lawmakers that agents’ texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, had been erased as part of a device replacement program. Those texts have not been recovered.
The documents also corroborate parts of the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, who told the panel in June how Mr. Trump had become enraged when his security detail refused to take him to the Capitol.
ImageThe chairman of the House Jan. 6 panel has pledged to reveal “significant information that we’ve not shown to the public” in Thursday’s hearing, which may be its last.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York Times
The hearing is expected to be the panel’s first without live testimony from witnesses. But Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee, has pledged to reveal “significant information that we’ve not shown to the public.”
The hearing is planned for 2.5 hours with a 10-minute break. Each member of the committee will have a chance to speak.
The committee is expected to use some evidence from a Danish film crew that trailed the political operative Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, for a documentary titled “A Storm Foretold.”
The filmmakers said they plan to attend the hearing at the Capitol.
Included in the evidence are text messages that show that Mr. Stone sought a pardon in connection with the events of Jan. 6 and maintained close relationships with the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
The footage also shows Mr. Stone using bellicose language, endorsing violence and laying out plans to create and exploit uncertainty about the election results to help Mr. Trump cling to power.
The panel also could use some of the testimony of Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election. Her interview was not recorded on video under an arrangement reached with her lawyer.
Committee investigators also held closed-door interviews with senior Trump administration officials throughout the summer in an effort to uncover more about the period between Jan. 6 and Jan. 20, 2021, when President Biden was sworn in, including talks about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.
The committee also has been investigating statements by key allies of Mr. Trump asserting that the president planned to declare he won the election even if the votes proved he had lost.
The session will come as the committee, with only months remaining in its work, still faces many significant unresolved issues, including whether to issue subpoenas to Mr. Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, a possibility that appears increasingly unlikely with each passing day. Members must weigh whether to enforce subpoenas issued to Republican members of Congress who have refused to cooperate with their inquiry, when to turn the investigative files over to the Justice Department and whether to make criminal referrals to the department.
The committee has tasked a subcommittee of its four lawyers — Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming; Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California; Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California; and Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland — to study the issue of criminal referrals.
The panel also must reach a consensus on what legislative recommendations to make. And perhaps most daunting, its staff must still deliver its comprehensive written report, which panel members had hoped to complete and release before next month’s midterm elections, but whose publication date has slipped.
Thursday’s hearing, which Mr. Thompson had previously said would be the panel’s last barring unforeseen revelations, was postponed abruptly last month as Hurricane Ian bore down on Florida.
Source: nytimes.com
