Jan. 6 committee schedules prime-time hearing on Trump’s inaction during attack

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack will hold what could be its final public hearing of the summer during prime time on Thursday, examining former President Trump’s three hours of inaction during the insurrection.

A notice from the panel does not formally announce any witnesses, but the hearing will kick off at 8 p.m. and review the 187 minutes between Trump leaving his “Stop the Steal” rally that day and his finally issuing a statement asking supporters who ransacking the Capitol to go home. 

“We’ll talk about what was going on in the White House while the Capitol was being overrun, and basically we will show what the president — as best we can put together — was doing all that time. Or not doing,” Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters Wednesday.

The hearing comes after the committee finally scored a formal deposition with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone earlier this month following a subpoena. Cipollone was one of the few people to speak with Trump that day, and video snippets of his conversation with the committee’s investigators appeared extensively in its seventh public hearing this week.

While Thursday’s hearing caps the themes the committee laid out in its first, Thompson has not ruled out the possibility of additional hearings.

“I’m hoping it is [the last],” he said. “But you know, something could come up.”