The House select committee investigating last year’s insurrection is gearing up for its national debut of hearings that will include videotaped interviews with Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, The Washington Post reports.
On Thursday, select committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will launch the series of televised hearings featuring both live witnesses and taped interviews, including several White House figures. Both Trump and Kushner served as senior advisers in Donald Trump’s White House during the insurrection last year on Jan. 6.
Their interviews have been described to the Post as “gripping.”
The committee will attempt to place the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a broader context of a wide-ranging scheme to overturn a legitimate presidential election, with Trump’s involvement “serving as the through line,” sources told the Post.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is expected to play a key role in the hearings, according to sources. She has already reportedly provided the committee with “extensive” information about Meadows’ activities aimed at overturning the election.
The final hearing will focus mainly on then-President Trump — what he did and what he said before and on Jan. 6. Any remaining “bombshells” will be revealed then, a source told the Post.
The hearings will be a culmination of more than a year of committee work that involved more than 1,000 interviews with witnesses and the examination of 125,000 documents, the Post reports. It will be the most detailed examination to date of the events that led up to the insurrection and the violence.
What happens when the hearings conclude is uncertain. The committee can refer cases for prosecution, but it’s up to the Justice Department to decide whether to file any charges.
But a no-frills arrest Friday of staunch Trump supporter and former trade adviser Peter Navarro could signal a new get-tough DOJ. Navarro, who was indicted on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for blowing off a committee subpoena to testify, was arrested, handcuffed and locked in a cell.