Jan. 6 hearing to focus on Trump's 'state of mind,' role in plot to overturn 2020 election

Over the course of several public hearings this summer, members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection walked the public through each phase of what they described as a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Now the committee is preparing to take a broader look at that plan — and former President Donald Trump’s role in it — when it returns for its next and potentially final public hearing Thursday.

“We're going to bring a particular focus on the former president’s state of mind and his involvement in these events as they unfolded,” a select committee aide said Wednesday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters on background, committee aides offered relatively few details before the highly anticipated hearing, which had originally been scheduled for Sept. 28 but was postponed due to Hurricane Ian.

Unlike many of the panel’s previous public hearings, an aide said Thursday’s presentation will not feature live witnesses, but rather a multimedia presentation that will include new witness testimony, as well as “a great deal of new documentary evidence,” that the committee has obtained since it wrapped its blockbuster run of hearings this summer.

In particular, the aide said the committee plans to present new information from the “hundreds of thousands of pages that the United States Secret Service has produced to the committee” in response to a subpoena, as well as “new video footage showing efforts to respond in real time to the violence in January as that violence was unfolding.”

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the panel is expected to reveal newly obtained Secret Service records showing that Trump knew about the possibility of violence on Jan. 6 but still wanted to be taken to the Capitol. Such evidence would support parts of the explosive testimony given in late June by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Hutchinson testified that Trump was determined to join his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and that he dismissed concerns about the fact that many in attendance at his rally earlier that day were carrying weapons, saying, “They’re not here to hurt me.”

Though the panel has not announced plans for any additional hearings going forward, a committee staffer said Wednesday that it was “reluctant” to label Thursday’s hearing “as a closing argument.”

“The investigation is ongoing. And of course, at some point, there will be a comprehensive report released which will present the Select Committee's findings in a more complete manner,” the staffer said. “I would resist any characterization that makes this seem like the final time you're going to hear from the committee.”