The House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots announced an unexpected new hearing on Tuesday “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”
Originally, the committee had said it was not going to resume hearings until mid-July, so the announcement late on Monday generated surprise and speculation.
The panel did not revealed the topic of what will be its sixth hearing this month or who is scheduled to testify. The hearing is slated to start at 1 p.m. ET on Capitol Hill.
The seven hearings by the panel were planned for June, however, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., revealed last week that the final two would not be held until July, hinting at new evidence coming in.
Furthermore, Thompson argued that more time was needed to go through new documentary footage received from Alex Holder, promising never-before-seen videos of former President Donald Trump and his family, as well as additional information from the National Archives.
‘Shrouded in Secrecy’
Ahead of Tuesday’s surprise hearing, committee members were specifically asked not speak with media, according to two people involved with the Jan. 6 investigation who were cited by The Washington Post.
Furthermore, even some senior committee staff and aides to lawmakers were kept guessing at to the need for such secrecy. Credible security threats to a witness were cited as the possible reason for everyone being kept in the dark, added insiders.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows may testify publicly on Tuesday, Punchbowl News first reported sources as saying.
Hutchinson was previously interviewed by the committee behind closed doors, with the video clips featured during earlier hearings. Hutchinson’s proximity to former President Donald Trump's then-WH chief of staff had set her apart as one of the most consequential witnesses of the hearings.
Thus, during a hearing last week, Hutchinson was heard as testifying that Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, wanted then-Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark to take over the department.
"He wanted Mr. Clark - Mr. Jeff Clark - to take over the Department of Justice," she said at a hearing last week.
She also dropped names of several Republican lawmakers who either addressed her or someone she knew regarding the matter of Trump issuing blanket, broad pardons in their name.
The timing of another development has also triggered speculation in light of the last-minute hearing.
Trump-allied lawyer John Eastman, who had pushed for ex- vice president Mike Pence to overturn election results, announced that says federal agents had seized his phone the same day federal agents searched the home of Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official under Trump and a key Jan. 6 probe figure.
Eastman stated, in papers filed in federal court in New Mexico and cited by media, that he was stopped last week in New Mexico by FBI agents. They executed a search warrant and seized his phone after they “forced” him to unlock it.
Also on Wednesday, agents executed a search warrant at the Virginia home of Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official said on Fox News.
US media outlets point to the clarification given on the inspector general's website. It states that the office is examining "the role and activity of DOJ and its components in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021."
In a committee hearing earlier this month, Greg Jacob, Mike Pence's counsel at the time, testified that Eastman had urged the vice president on 5 January to reject electors from contested states. In an email Eastman to Rudy Giuliani after the Capitol events, the lawyer was revealed to have written, “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”
Earlier in the month, hearings have featured both live and prerecorded testimony from key figures in Trump’s orbit, as well as Republican officials, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, ex-Attorney General William P. Barr, and Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The bipartisan committee originally said it would hold seven hearings on the initial findings from its nearly yearlong investigation into events dating to January 6, 2021. At the time, supporters of then-US President Donald Trump attempted to block certification of presidential election results that the 45th POTUS had dismissed as fraudulent, storming the US Capitol and temporarily dispersing Congress. However, they failed at their goal, and Joe Biden was sworn in several weeks later. As a result of events at the Capitol, five people, including a police officer, died.
The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee have firmly placed Donald Trump at the center of what they called a coordinated ‘multi-pronged conspiracy’ to overturn the 2020 election results.
Then-President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives to speak at a rally in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021.
© AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin
Trump was accused of "incitement of insurrection" despite having called on his supporters, via his now-suspended Twitter account, "to stay peaceful" and "go home", and recording a video address on 7 January condemning the violence. The 45th POTUS has denied wrongdoing while denouncing the committee’s work as a ‘witch-hunt’.
The committee is not empowered to file criminal charges against Donald Trump or anyone else. There is no clarity regarding whether the panel intends to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department.