Thursday’s hearing will begin with eyewitness accounts of the first police officer to be hit by the mob uprising and a documentary watching the Proud Boys extremists prepare to fight Trump shortly after the election and lead the invasion of Cape Town. It will also include committee reports from Trump aides and family members interviewed in camera about the deadly siege that Democrats and others say endanger US democracy. “When you hear and understand the widespread conspiracy and the attempt to corrupt every lever and government body involved in it, you know, the hairs on the back of your neck will have to stand up,” said Elaine Luria, D. in an interview with Va., a member of the 1/6 committee. “Putting it all together in one place and a coherent narrative, I think, will help the American people better understand what happened on January 6 – and the threats it could pose in the future.” The 1/6 commission’s annual inquiry will begin to show how America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power was about to slip away. He will reconstruct the way in which Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, spread false allegations of voter fraud and orchestrated an unprecedented public and private campaign to overthrow Biden’s victory. The outcome of the coming weeks of public hearings may not change the hearts or minds of politically polarized America. But the commission’s 1,000-interview survey is set to set a public record for history. A final report aims to provide a record of the most violent attack on the Capitol since the British set it on fire in 1814, and to ensure that such an attack never happens again. Without apology, Trump dismissed the investigation as illegal – and even said on social media on Thursday that January 6 “represents the largest movement in the history of our country.” The uprising left more than 100 police officers injured, many beaten and bloodied, as crowds of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, batons and bear spray, stormed the Capitol. At least nine people were killed during and after the riots, including a woman who was shot and killed by police. Emotions are still raw in the Capitol and security will be strict for the hearings. Law enforcement officials report an increase in violent threats against members of Congress. In that context, the commission will speak to a divided America in the run-up to the midterm elections, when voters decide which party controls Congress. Most TV networks will broadcast the auditions live, but Fox News Channel will not. The committee’s chair, civil rights leader MP Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., And the vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will set the tone for the opening remarks. The two leaders of Congress will describe what the committee learned about the events that led to that tumultuous January day when Trump sent his supporters to Congress to “fight like hell” for his presidency as lawmakers took over. the typical routine work of certifying the results of the previous November. . “People will have to follow two crossroads – one will be the attempt to overthrow the presidential election, this is a painful story in itself,” said Jamie Raskin, D-Md. in an interview. “The other will be the sequence of events that will lead to a violent mob attack on the Capitol to stop the counting of votes in the Electoral College and to disrupt the peaceful balance of power,” he said. First will be the devastating reports from the police that he took part in a hand-to-hand battle with the mob, with the testimony of the US Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who was seriously injured in the attack. Also on Thursday will be documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys invading the Capitol – and a key leadership meeting with another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, last night in a nearby parking garage. The leaders of both groups, along with some members, have since been accused of rare insurgency allegations of military-style aggression. Along with eyewitness testimony, the panel will uncover multimedia presentations, including previously unreleased video and audio, and a “mountain of evidence,” said an aide to the commission, who insisted on anonymity to preview the hearing. There will be accounts recorded by Trump’s top aides in the White House, the government and the campaign, as well as members of the Trump family, the aide said. Information from Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, who urged her father to cancel the rioters, may be disclosed by her private appearance before the commission. In the coming weeks, the commission is expected to present in detail Trump’s public campaign to “Stop Theft” and private pressure on the Justice Department to reverse its electoral defeat – despite dozens of failed court cases and its own attorney general. who confirmed that there was no fraud on a scale that could have tilted the results in his favor. The panel faced obstacles from the beginning. Republicans have prevented the formation of an independent body that could have investigated the January 6 attack in the way the 9/11 Commission investigated the 2001 terrorist attack. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inaugurated the 1/6 committee through Congress on the objections of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. He rejected lawmakers nominated by Republicans who voted against certifying the election results Jan. 6, eventually naming seven Democrats and two Republicans. House of Representatives GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has been involved in the investigation and defied the committee’s summons for an interview, echoed Trump on Thursday. He called the commission a “fraud” and described the investigation as a “smokescreen” for Democrats’ priorities. By and large, the attack began shortly after election day, when Trump falsely claimed the vote was rigged and refused to concede as soon as Biden was declared the winner. The hearings are expected to introduce Americans to a cast of characters, some acquaintances, others elusive, and what they said and did as Trump and his allies tried to overturn the election result. The public will learn about the actions of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff, whose more than 2,000 text messages provided the committee with a real-time snapshot of the struggle to keep Trump in power. By John Eastman, the conservative law professor who was the architect of the failed plan to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to stop certifying on Jan. 6. From Justice Department officials who threatened to resign instead of following Trump’s proposals. Several Republican lawmakers and even candidates running for office, including the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, have also been implicated in the investigation. The Ministry of Justice has arrested and charged more than 800 people with violence that day, the largest net in its history.
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
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