WASHINGTON(Reuters) -The second hearing of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was delayed on Monday when one of the witnesses – former President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager William Stepien – said he would miss the hearing for family reasons.
The hearing, which was due to start at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), was pushed back for at least half an hour. The second of six expected this month, the session is to focus on former Trump’s insistence that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an unfounded allegation known as the “Big Lie.”
The remaining witnesses include officials from Atlanta and Philadelphia who resigned as Trump’s allies questioned election results in their states.
The panel is holding the hearings to discuss initial findings of its year-long investigation into the events of Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol as Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers met to certify Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 election by Democrat Joe Biden.
Monday’s session follows a blockbuster hearing on Thursday night featuring testimony showing that close Trump allies – even his daughter Ivanka – rejected his false claims of voting fraud. Nearly 20 million Americans watched the unusual hearing aired in the “primetime” peak television viewing hours.
Committee members said on Sunday they would like to see the Department of Justice investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity by Trump or anyone else.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and he and his supporters dismiss the Democratic-led Select Committee as a political witchhunt. Democrats call it a necessary investigation into a terrible and deadly event and say House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted a bipartisan independent commission but Republicans refused.
“I suppose our entire investigation is a referral of crimes both to the Department of Justice and the American people, because this is a massive assault on the machinery of American democracy,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
HOSTILE WITNESSES?
Monday’s hearing was to feature two panels of witnesses, with additional videotaped testimony expected from the more than 1,000 depositions and interviews.
The remaining witnesses included Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor at Fox News.
Monday’s witnesses also were to include conservative Republican election attorney Ben Ginsberg, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, who resigned as U.S. attorney in Atlanta as Trump’s camp questioned Georgia’s election results, and Al Schmidt, the only Republican on Philadelphia’s elections board who became a target of attacks after he defended the integrity of the 2020 vote.
Georgia and Pennsylvania were among states that backed Trump in the 2016 election, but went for Biden in 2020. They have been a focus of the unfounded assertions of election fraud.
A committee aide said Representative Zoe Lofgren would play a leading role during Monday’s hearing.
Four people died the day of the attack, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. Some 140 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.
Nearly 850 people have been arrested for crimes related to the riot, including more than 250 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. Of those, about 90 have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
A committee aide declined comment during a conference call with reporters on Sunday on whether any of Monday’s witnesses would be testifying under subpoena. He had also declined to say whether Stepien was expected to be a confrontational witness.
Stepien’s firm is working with Harriet Hageman, a Trump-endorsed candidate running against Representative Liz Cheney, vice chairperson of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, in the Republican primary for Cheney’s Wyoming House seat. Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the nine-member select committee.
House Republicans voted to remove Cheney from her caucus leadership position after she criticized Trump, and she has been a target of verbal attacks by the former president.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell,)
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