World News

Jan 6 panel live news: Ex-Trump campaign manager will not testify | Donald Trump News

Congressional committee probing the 2021 attack on US Capitol holds second public hearing with focus on Trump.

  • Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien pulls out of his scheduled appearance before the panel, citing a family emergency, committee says.
  • Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor of Fox News, is expected to testify.
  • Jamie Raskin, a key Democrat serving on the committee, says the panel’s probe is referring “crimes” to the Justice Department as well as the US public.
  • First hearing focused on Trump’s role and highlighted the violent nature of the attack on the Capitol building.

Here are the latest updates:

Republicans pivot to Capitol security

Republican officials, who have dismissed the January 6 hearings as a political show, have been trying to draw attention to what they describe as inadequate security at the U.S. Capitol on the day of the attack in an apparent effort to deflect from Trump’s role in the riots. .

“Far-Left Democrats and their Partisan Puppets failed to focus on how to secure the People’s House,” House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, a close Trump ally, wrote on Twitter.

Stefanik had replaced Liz Cheney, a Trump critic and one of two Republicans on the January 6 panel, as conference chair last year.


Former Fox News editor to testify

Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor of Fox News, is expected to testify at the panel.

Stirewalt came under fire from Trump and his supporters after the Fox News political desk was the first to call Arizona for Biden in November 2020. Fox has denied that his departure had anything to do with that call.


Key Democrat says panel referring ‘crimes’ to Justice Department, US public

Congressman Jamie Raskin, a key Democrat serving on the committee, has said the panel’s probe is referring to the wrongdoings around the attack on the Capitol to the Justice Department as well as the US public.

“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,” Raskin said on CNN.


Trump’s former campaign manager no longer testifies

Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien has abruptly pulled out of his scheduled appearance before the panel, citing a family emergency, the committee said.

Stepien was expected to be a witness for the hearing as the panel delves deeper into what it calls the “big lie,” the defeated president’s false claims of voter fraud that fueled his effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee said Stepien’s lawyer will appear and make a statement on the record.


Key takaways from last hearing

Former President Donald Trump took center stage in the first of seven highly anticipated public hearings by the congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021 US capitol riots.

Lawmakers tried to highlight the violent nature of the attack on the Capitol, warning that US democracy was “at risk”.

Read the key takeaways from last Thursday’s hearing here.


Welcome to Al Jazeera’s live coverage of a United States congressional committee’s public hearing in its probe into the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.




Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button