Getty Thousands of Donald Trump supporters storm the United States Capitol building following a "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. The protesters stormed the historic building, breaking windows and clashing with police. Trump supporters had gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The House select committee announced it would hold a surprise Jan 6. hearing today, June 28, 2022, to present new evidence that recently came to light. The hearing will begin at 1 p.m. Eastern time.
The committee said the hearing was scheduled “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”
It had initially planned to take a brief hiatus until the week of July 11. CNN reported that Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, was called to testify. Read more about her here.
Today’s hearing will be the sixth day the committee meets to present evidence surrounding the U.S. Capitol insurrection. The most recent hearing was held June 23, 2022, when the committee presented evidence that former President Donald Trump placed pressure on the U.S. Department of Justice to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Here’s what you need to know:
Trump Posted on His New Social Media Platform as Day 5 of the Hearing Unfolded
Among takeaways from intense hearing:
-Trump’s attempt to install Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General is among the most blatant attempts to use the Department of Justice for political ends since Watergate.
Trump, who is banned from Twitter, took to his new social media platform, Truth Social, to downplay the testimony presented on Day 5 of the Jan. 6 hearings Thursday, June 23.
“Has there ever been a time in Congress where a member is allowed, without any cross examination of any kind, to read lengthy and often untruthful statements, not from notes or other papers, BUT FROM A TELEPROMPTER?” Trump posted.
“This is a Kangaroo Court the likes of which we have never seen in this Country!” he added.
He also repeated the false and debunked claims about voter fraud, referring to the movie “2000 Mules.”
“Such lies by the Unselects!” he wrote.
‘I Would Have Laid My Body Across the Road Before I Would Have Let a Vice President Overturn the Election,’ J. Michael Luttig Said on Day 3 of the Hearings
Greg Jacob, the vice president’s counsel, testifies before the Jan. 6 panel on the theory that Mike Pence could overturn the election results during a joint session of Congress.
“There is no justifiable basis to conclude that the vice president has that kind of authority.”
Retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig had strong words for the House select committee on Day 3 of the hearing June 16, saying that he would never have let former Vice President Mike Pence overturn the election results.
“I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let a vice president overturn an election,” Luttig testified.
Luttig said that former President Donald Trump “instigated” a war on democracy “so that he could cling to power.”
“It is breathtaking that these arguments even were conceived, let alone entertained by the President of the United States at that perilous moment in history,” Luttig wrote in his statement. “Had the Vice President of the United States obeyed the President of the United States, America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”
Luttig was one of those who cleared up confusion among some of Trump’s supporters, saying Pence did not have the power to change the election results.
The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast.
“The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast,” Luttig wrote in the tweet on the morning of January 5, 2021.