When the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol convenes again tomorrow at 1 p.m. for a public hearing, part of their focus will be to identify the Republican members of Congress who conspired with former president Donald Trump to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Aides to the Jan. 6 committee told reporters during a phone call Monday afternoon that of specific interest to the committee is to lay out how some in the GOP actively assisted Trump in his harebrained scheme to subvert the will of the voters by pressuring then-vice president Mike Pence to refuse certification of the Electoral College votes.
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian notes that there will also be extensive testimony on the nexus between Trump and domestic terrorist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers:
The House January 6 select committee is expected to make the case at its seventh hearing Tuesday that Donald Trump gave the signal to the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol to target and obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.
The panel will zero in on a pivotal tweet sent by the former president in the early hours of the morning on 19 December 2020, according to sources close to the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the forthcoming hearing.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump said in the tweet. “Be there, will be wild!”
That tweet, the committee contends, led domestic terror groups to begin actively planning for Jan. 6. The panel plans to show a detailed chronology of what happened after Trump’s marching orders had been issued on social media:
On 20 December 2020, prosecutors have said, the former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio created an encrypted group chat called “MOSD Leaders Group” – described by Tarrio as a “national rally planning” committee that included his top lieutenants.
Top members of the Oath Keepers militia group led by Stewart Rhodes, who have also been indicted for seditious conspiracy, made similar plans as they prepared to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s election win, the panel intends to show.
The select committee will then focus on how the Oath Keepers stockpiled weapons and created an armed quick reaction force ready to deploy to the Capitol, and how the group ended up as the security detail for far-right activist Roger Stone and other Trump allies.
What members of Congress will likely hear their names called by the committee on Tuesday? Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Josh Hawley (R-MO), along with Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), although others may also be mentioned as co-conspirators who could be facing criminal referral the Justice Department and punishment from the Senate and House Ethics committees.
