Capitol Riot Panel Weighs Televised Hearings in Prime Time
The House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is considering holding televised hearings during prime evening viewing hours so that the public can have “the best opportunity” to hear testimony and evaluate evidence, the panel’s chairman said.
“Maybe a series of hearings,” Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said Tuesday in an interview. “The public needs to know, needs to hear from people under oath about what led up to Jan. 6th, and to some degree, what has continued after Jan. 6.”
The hearings could occur in late March or early April, but no date has been set, Thompson added. “We’re working toward that.” A congressional hearing conducted during what is considered television’s prime viewing time would be unusual. Most such proceedings are held during daytime business hours, sometimes carried on the C-Span public affairs network.
Such hearings likely would heighten the partisan rancor surrounding the work of the committee, which is investigating the insurrection by a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump while Congress was certifying the Electoral College vote for the 2020 presidential election. The panel is made up of seven Democrats and two Republican critics of Trump.
Most of the committee’s nearly six months of work has so far occurred behind closed doors. Thompson said the committee and its staff to date have collected 45,000 documents, interviewed more than 300 witnesses.
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