By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is planning to hold its next hearing on Sept. 28, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday.
Representative Bennie Thompson told reporters he expected the public hearing would be the panel’s last, unless something else happens.
The Democratic-led Select Committee held eight hearings over six weeks in June and July, disclosing the findings of its more than year-long probe of events surrounding the deadly assault on the seat of the government by supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump.
In its earlier hearings – including one held in July 2021 – the panel made its case that, after losing the 2020 presidential election, Trump ignored close allies who told him his claims of widespread election fraud were untrue and then sat back and watched as followers who believed his false accusations stormed the Capitol.
A spokesman for the Select Committee declined comment, saying he had no schedule updates to report.
The panel has not said when it will release its final report, although the document is widely expected to be made public before the Nov. 8 mid-term elections, when control of the U.S. Congress is up for grabs.
Trump has refused to concede that he lost the election, instead repeating unfounded allegations that President Joe Biden’s victory was the result of electoral fraud.
The committee is trying to establish what Trump did while thousands of his supporters attacked police, vandalized the Capitol and sent members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence running for their lives as they met to formally certify the election result.
The Department of Justice is conducting its own investigation about efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)
