Jan. 6 Committee Postpones Hearing, Says More Time Needed to Get Ready

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) speaks to reporters in Washington on Jan. 14, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The House of Representatives panel that is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol has postponed a hearing that was scheduled for June 15.

The delay stemmed from needing more time to prepare, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said.

“I will tell you, putting together the video and exhibits is an exhausting exercise for our very small video staff so we’re trying to—we were going to have one, two, three in one week, but it was too much to put it all together—so we’re trying to give them a little room to do their technical work,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

The panel held its first hearing in months earlier in June, and a second hearing on June 13.

“The schedule has always been fluid so we’re going to move forward and have a Thursday hearing and get ready for hearings next week as well. The hearing will be postponed and moved to, likely, next week,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), another member of the panel, told reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Aguilar said the panel also wanted to make sure that reporters “have the time and space to digest all the information that we’re putting out there.”

The schedule change comes after the U.S. Capitol Police undermined claims from Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) regarding a group Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) led through office buildings near the Capitol one day before the building was breached.

Thomas Manger, chief of the capitol police, said in a letter that there was “no evidence” that Loudermilk took the group to the Capitol, or even into any of the tunnels leading to the building from the office space.

Thompson and Cheney, meanwhile, diverged on whether the panel will be making any criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. Thompson, the panel’s chair, said after Monday’s hearing that the panel would not make any referrals; Cheney soon took to social media to assert the decision was still up in the air.

“We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time,” Cheney said.

The panel had aired footage from depositions of key figures in President Donald Trump’s administration and in his 2020 campaign, including his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, campaign manager Bill Stepien, and Attorney General William Barr. The panel also questioned former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, former U.S. Attorney B. Jay Pak, and several others.

The panel is dominated by Democrats and includes zero Republican members not picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).