The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is delving deeper into what it calls “the big lie,” Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
Those unsupported claims fueled Trump's relentless effort to overturn the 2020 election and led a mob of his supporters to lay siege to the U.S. Capitol. The 1/6 panel resumed its hearings Monday morning with live witnesses. Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, was scheduled to speak on Monday.
However, Stepien had a family emergency and is no longer able to testify today. Stepien's attorney reported that his wife went into labor on Monday.
Committee members say they have uncovered enough evidence for the Justice Department to consider a criminal indictment against the former president. No president or ex-president has ever been indicted.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
"I would like to see the Justice Department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump or anyone else," Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the committee, told ABC News. "The rule of law needs to apply equally to everyone. And there are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the election, that I don't see evidence the Justice Department is investigating.”
The committee laid the groundwork last Thursday in a rare prime-time hearing that included clips from a number of Trump allies contradicting his claims of a rigged election. The first of eight hearings also included testimony from a filmmaker embedded with insurrectionists and a police officer who was on hand during the attack.
Providing testimony on Monday will be Chris Stirewalt, former Fox political editor, Benjamin Ginsberg, election attorney, BJay Pak, former US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia and Al Schmidt, former Philadelphia City Commissioner.
