WASHINGTON — The Home committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol opened a landmark collection of public hearings on Thursday evening, and deliberate to play beforehand unreleased video of former President Donald J. Trump’s prime aides and members of the family testifying earlier than its workers, in addition to footage revealing the function of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, within the assault.
Committee aides say the proof will present that Mr. Trump was on the heart of a “coordinated, multistep effort to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election” that resulted in a mob of his supporters storming the halls of Congress and disrupting the official electoral depend that could be a pivotal step within the peaceable switch of presidential energy.
The listening to is the primary in a collection of six deliberate for this month, throughout which the panel plans to put out for Individuals the total magnitude and significance of Mr. Trump’s systematic drive to invalidate the 2020 election and stay in energy.
“We’ll exhibit the multipronged effort to overturn a presidential election, how one technique to subvert the election led to a different, culminating in a violent assault on our democracy,” stated Consultant Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. “It’s an essential story, and one which should be instructed to make sure it by no means occurs once more.”
The prime-time listening to options reside testimony from a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the Proud Boys through the assault, and a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured as rioters breached barricades and stormed into the constructing.
The committee additionally plans to current what aides referred to as a small however “significant” portion of the recorded interviews its investigators performed with greater than 1,000 witnesses, together with senior Trump White Home officers, marketing campaign officers and Mr. Trump’s members of the family.
Mr. Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his son Donald Trump Jr. are among the many high-profile witnesses who’ve testified earlier than the panel.
Mr. Quested, a British documentarian who has labored in warfare zones comparable to Afghanistan, spent a great deal of the postelection interval filming members of the Proud Boys, together with the group’s former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in reference to the Capitol riot. Mr. Quested accompanied the Proud Boys to pro-Trump rallies in Washington in November and December 2020 and was on the bottom with members of the group on Jan. 6, when a number of performed an important function in breaching the Capitol.
Ms. Edwards, a well-respected Capitol Police officer, is believed to be the primary officer injured within the assault, when she suffered a concussion throughout an assault at a barricade on the base of Capitol Hill. A person who has been charged with participating within the assault, Ryan Samsel, instructed the F.B.I. throughout an interview greater than a 12 months in the past that simply earlier than he approached the barricade, a high-ranking member of the Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, had inspired him to confront the police.
Different officers across the constructing recall listening to Officer Edwards calling for assist over the radio — one of many first indicators that mob violence was starting to overrun the police presence. Months after the assault, she continued to have fainting spells believed to be linked to her accidents.
Consultant Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, and Consultant Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman, are anticipated to steer the presentation of the panel’s proof and query the witnesses.
The session will kick off an bold effort by the committee, which was fashioned in July after Republicans blocked the creation of a nonpartisan fee to research the assault, to put out for Individuals the total story of an unprecedented assault on U.S. democracy that led to a lethal riot, an impeachment and a disaster of confidence within the political system that continues to reverberate.
The hearings are unfolding 5 months earlier than midterm elections by which the Democrats’ majority is at stake, at a time when they’re keen to attract a pointy distinction between themselves and the Republicans who enabled and embraced Mr. Trump, together with the members of Congress who abetted his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Republicans are planning countermessaging that started on Thursday morning, when the social gathering’s Home leaders took turns at a information convention on Capitol Hill bashing the panel’s work as “illegitimate” and a “sham.”
They argued that the committee was out of contact with the pocketbook issues of many Individuals.
“Is Nancy Pelosi going to carry a prime-time listening to on inflation?” Consultant Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, stated. “I’d positive prefer to see that. I believe loads of Individuals would. Is Nancy Pelosi going to carry a prime-time listening to on decreasing fuel costs? They’ve refused to up to now.”