Jan 6 live news: Focus turns to Trump pressure on state officials | Donald Trump News
Fourth hearing of the month will scrutinise Donald Trump’s push to get local election officials to reject 2020 results.
- The committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol continues to focus on former President Donald Trump.
- Trump has rejected the committee’s findings, calling the hearings a “theatrical production of partisan political fiction”.
- Tuesday’s hearing will feature local election officials who are expected to testify that Trump’s team pressured them to reject the election results.
- The previous hearing examined Trump’s pressure campaign on his vice president, Mike Pence, to overturn the 2020 elections.
Here are all the latest updates:
State officials to testify
The hearing on Tuesday will feature election officials and legislators from two key swing states that Trump had falsely claimed he won in 2020.
Witnesses include Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers; Brad Raffensperger, Georgia secretary of state; Gabriel Sterling, Georgia secretary of state chief operating officer; and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a former Georgia election worker.
Witnesses for Tuesday’s hearing ⤵️
Panel 1
• Rusty Bowers, Arizona House Speaker
• Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State
• Gabriel Sterling, Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating OfficerPanel 2
• Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, former Georgia election worker— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 20, 2022
Hearing will focus on Trump’s pressure on state election officials
Tuesday’s hearing will examine Trump’s pressure on state election officials to overturn the 2020 election. That campaign by the former president had targeted bureaucrats overseeing the elections in key swing states, many of whom were Republican.
“President Trump and his allies drove a pressure campaign based on lies, and these lies led to threats that put state and local officials and their families at risk,” the Reuters news agency quoted a committee aide as saying.
Trump rebukes Jan 6 panel – again
Trump, who had previously dismissed the January 6 congressional panel as “treasonous” and called the hearings a “kangaroo court”, has continued his verbal attacks on the committee.
“Let’s be clear, this is not a congressional investigation, this horrible situation that’s wasting everyone’s time. This is a theatrical production of partisan political fiction. That’s getting these terrible, terrible ratings and they’re going crazy,” Trump told an audience in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday.
Key takeaways from last hearing
The last hearing on June 16 examined how Trump and some of his aides pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory.
The committee heard from witnesses, including Pence confidants, how Trump wanted his vice president to use his ceremonial role of counting electoral votes from the states to reject the 2020 election results.
Legal experts, including a former conservative federal judge, argued that such a move would have been unconstitutional and posed a threat to US democracy.
Read the key takeaways from that hearing here.
Welcome to Al Jazeera’s live coverage of a United States congressional committee’s public hearing on its inquiry into the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot.
