The Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is considering holding prime-time hearings with witnesses to reveal what it has learned about the planning of the riot.
“The Select Committee views upcoming hearings as one of its most important opportunities to lay out facts and provide answers to the American people about the January 6th attack and its causes,” a committee aide reportedly told Axios. “[W]e want to tell a story… reaching as many people as we can. The Select Committee’s business meetings so far have been held in the evening, and that’s certainly an option … for future hearings.”
The committee has only held one public hearing so far, featuring four law enforcement officers who protected the Capitol. However, it has collected more than 300 witnesses and collected more than 35,000 pages of documents, according to the Associated Press. It has also moved to hold in contempt former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former White House chief strategist and media personality Steve Bannon for refusing to cooperate with subpoenas.
Most congressional hearings are conducted during normal business hours, and streamed on C-SPAN, so the decision to hold an evening hearing could be viewed as unusual.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told Bloomberg that the committee could hold a “series of hearings,” adding that doing so would allow viewers “to hear from people under oath about what led up to Jan. 6th, and to some degree, what has continued after Jan. 6.