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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 US 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.
Far-Left Democrats and their Partisan Puppets failed to focus on how to secure the People’s House.
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) June 12, 2022
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 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 ex-campaign manager no longer testifying
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 spurred his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The committee said Stepien’s lawyer will appear and make a statement on the record.
Key takeaways from last hearing
Former President Donald Trump took centre 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.
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