According to The Washington Post, the public hearings that’ll soon get underway from the House committee investigating the Capitol riot are set to include “pretaped interviews with figures that include Trump family members and previously unseen video footage.” It’s kind of hilarious to imagine how much ex-President Trump seems likely to dislike the potential televised presentation of footage of interviews with members of his family.
According to the Post, the panel has “video recordings of interviews with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, that some inside the process believe will make for gripping television.” Ivanka and Jared — both of whom worked inside the Trump political operation — both testified to the riot panel for hours at a time apiece, suggesting that they were at least relatively forthcoming with committee members. Ivanka’s meeting with the committee apparently went for some eight hours, while Jared’s apparently went for some six hours. Per NBC, a source in the (virtual) room for Kushner’s testimony described him “as being cooperative and friendly, adding that Kushner did the talking, as opposed to having his lawyers speak for him.” Again — it’s just hilarious to see these people essentially fall apart.
The riot committee has already formally stated it believes there to be criminal activity involved in the efforts around and involving Trump to attack the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, meaning Joe Biden’s victory. A federal judge, notably, found that Trump himself had likely — although not certainly — committed criminal acts while pushing to undo Biden’s presidential election win. Going forward, it’s not immediately clear which exact hearing in the upcoming set might feature footage of Ivanka and Jared, which — like other relevant points — committee members apparently haven’t yet finalized their decision on one way or the other. Still, “people familiar with the investigation believe the panel will screen footage of testimony from Ivanka Trump and Kushner — including Trump’s account of her father’s actions in the West Wing on Jan. 6,” the Post said — so that seems to be the direction that investigators are going.
The first hearing, set for June 9, will be meant “to provide the American people with a summary of our findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” according to the committee. Per the Post, the “final hearing is likely to be led by Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and focused primarily on Trump: what he did, what went on around him, and what he said before Jan. 6 and on that day” — although hearing plans aren’t conclusively set. There’s not even a witness list publicly available as of this point for the hearing that’s set for June 9, although committee members might be intentionally keeping that initially under wraps. Although their presence at these imminent hearings hasn’t been formally confirmed, likely witnesses apparently include former officials on then-VP Pence’s staff Marc Short and Greg Jacob along with Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Mark Meadows aide who’s provided the committee with substantial details about Trump’s administration. Read more at this link.
