CNN:
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack will hear testimony Tuesday from four police officers who were on the frontlines that day as rioters supporting then-President Trump violently stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying President Biden’s electoral win.
The hearing will mark the first time the panel will have public testimony, and will kick-start its efforts to investigate the events on Jan. 6.
The four officers testifying are:
- DC Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges
- DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone
- Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn
- Capitol Police Officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonell
National security analyst Clint Watts just reminded MSNBC viewers that the real gaps in what we know about the Jan. 6 insurrection lie at the Department of Justice and congressional levels. Nonetheless, putting these four and their harrowing stories of assault and injury at the hands of insurrectionists squarely in the public eye again will help reframe the contested narrative the G.O.P. and former president have worked so hard to muddy since January.
Adding to the morning’s drama, the Department of Justice has notified former Trump administration officials that they may testify before the committee about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol:
Witnesses can give “unrestricted testimony” to the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, the department said in a letter this week. Both panels are scrutinizing the Trump administration’s efforts to overturn the election in its final days and the events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The decision runs counter to the views of former President Donald J. Trump, who has argued that his decisions and deliberations are protected by executive privilege. It also sets up a potential court battle if Mr. Trump sues in a bid to block any testimony.
That’s “potential” in quotes. Winning via litigation delays is classic Trump. He will sue.
Media critic Eric Boehlert worries that the national media will “both sides” the investigation and insist there exists a “cloud” over the investigation:
So many media players will not accept the obvious fact that most Republicans don’t want a faithful accounting of the insurrection and Trump’s role in it. Republicans aren’t using smoke and mirrors to disguise their true intentions either. As usual, they’re being upfront in pushing their un-democratic agenda.
It’s just that journalists don’t want to acknowledge the disturbing reality, that the party they so desperately want to portray as being a mainstream, center-right entity is doing everything possible to make sure the facts surrounding the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol — a riot launched in an effort to stop the certification of an American election — remain clouded for reasons of self-preservation.
Sgt. Aquilino Gonell is already wiping away tears as he gives his opening statement. Nothing he’d seen as a U.S. soldier in Iraq had prepared him for what he experienced at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
It’s going to be a long day and a long investigation.