The second hearing of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was delayed on Monday when one of the witnesses – former President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager William Stepien – said he would miss the hearing for family reasons.
The hearing, which was due to start at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), was pushed back for at least half an hour. The second of six expected this month, the session is to focus on former Trump’s insistence that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an unfounded allegation known as the “Big Lie.”
The remaining witnesses include officials from Atlanta and Philadelphia who resigned as Trump’s allies questioned election results in their states.
The panel is holding the hearings to discuss initial findings of its year-long investigation into the events of Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol as Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers met to certify Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 election by Democrat Joe Biden.
Monday’s session follows a blockbuster hearing on Thursday night featuring testimony showing that close Trump allies – even his daughter Ivanka – rejected his false claims of voting fraud. Nearly 20 million Americans watched the unusual hearing aired in the “primetime” peak television viewing hours.
Committee members said on Sunday they would like to see the Department of Justice investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity by Trump or anyone else.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and he and his supporters dismiss the Democratic-led Select Committee as a political witchhunt. Democrats call it a necessary investigation into a terrible and deadly event and say House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted a bipartisan independent commission but Republicans refused.
“I suppose our entire investigation is a referral of crimes both to the Department of Justice and the American people, because this is a massive assault on the machinery of American democracy,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
