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 House select committee assigned to probe the events of Jan. 6, 2021, will reconvene for its last planned hearing today, Thursday, July 21, 2022, at 8 p.m. Eastern time. The hearings will be broadcast live on primetime TV.
The final hearing will focus on former President Donald Trump’s inaction to stop supporters who breached the U.S. Capitol building as lawmakers gathered to confirm the election of President Joe Biden, according to CNN.
Democratic Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia and GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois will be leading the hearing. Luria told CNN the committee will “go through pretty much minute by minute” Trump’s actions.
“He was doing nothing to actually stop the riot,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Former White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson Testified Trump Argued With Secret Service Agents, Attempting to Join Protesters at the U.S. Capitol
Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said in her testimony before the select committee that she overheard Trump reacting to news that protesters had weapons, and he said he did not care. Read more about Hutchinson here.
“I overheard the president say something to the effect of ‘I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in, take the f-ing mags away.”
Hutchinson testified that Trump was enraged that he was being driven back to the White House after his speech on the Ellipse, where he told protesters to “fight like hell.” She said he lunged for the steering wheel to grab it from Secret Service agent Robert Engle.
Hutchinson further said that when Meadows learned about violence at the Capitol, he “almost had a lack of reaction.”
‘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.