Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images
The House panel investigating the deadly invasion of the U.S. Capitol aims to hold lengthy public hearings next year detailing “in vivid color” the events of Jan. 6, both at the Capitol and in former President Donald Trump’s White House, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Thursday.
Cheney, the vice chair of the select committee and one of its two Republican members, said the panel aims to conduct “multiple weeks of public hearings” sometime in 2022, a year of crucial midterm elections where the GOP hopes to retake majority control of at least one chamber of Congress.
Those hearings will lay out “exactly what happened every minute of the day on Jan. 6 here at the Capitol and at the White House and what led to that violent attack,” Cheney said in a House Rules Committee hearing.
Cheney revealed the plans less than a day after the select committee voted to advance contempt proceedings for former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark over his alleged defiance of a subpoena for documents and testimony.
The investigators on Wednesday evening unanimously voted for a report recommending that the House hold Clark in contempt. Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Thursday morning that his panel would not yet rule on that report, because Clark was being given another chance to appear before the investigators on Saturday.
Clark is the second Trump associate to be accused of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas. The first, former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, was held in contempt by the House and subsequently indicted on two criminal counts by a federal grand jury. He has pleaded not guilty.
Cheney’s consistent denouncements of Trump over the Capitol riot, and her participation in the Jan. 6 committee itself, have made her a target of criticism from the former president and from many of her Republican colleagues.
Cheney was stripped of her leadership role after she refused to stop criticizing Trump for spreading the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
Hundreds of Trump’s supporters, many of whom claimed they wanted to reverse President Joe Biden’s victory in the election, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and forced Congress into hiding.
Trump has never conceded to Biden, and continues to spread baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud even as he hints he may run for president again in 2024. Trump was impeached in the House for inciting the attempted insurrection, but he was acquitted in the Senate where 60 votes are required for conviction.
