‘It Won’t be a Quiet Period’: Jan 6 Committee Plans to ‘Push Out’ Info Before November Mid-terms

In July, members of the House select committee investigating the breach of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, suggested that a preliminary report would be published in September. A final report - at the end of the year – would ostensibly lay out the findings incorporating details that never made it into public hearings.

The US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol intends to hold at least one more public hearing and release its preliminary report just before the November mid-term elections, Axios reported.

With that scheduling, October "won’t be a quiet period", Bennie Thompson, a Democrat representative from Mississippi, conceded.

Thompson, chairman of the nine-member cross-party panel which is keen to avoid any suggestion of partisanship or politicization, insisted their work had been “fairly free of those kind of complaints”.

Though saying the committee “would not want to interfere with the [mid-term] election", Thompson admitted that the time sandwiched between a hearing planned for 28 September and the mid-term elections on 8 November would probably result in “some information being pushed out”.

The panel may also release its interim report in that period. Thompson told journalists on 13 September that the committee's mandate expires at the end of the year, unlike the Justice Department investigation and the inquiry by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. Separate investigations into the businesses and tax returns of former President Donald Trump are also continuing.

"We sunset Dec 31", Thompson said.

Other members of the panel told Axios the mid-term elections were not a big factor in their scheduling.

Representative Jamie Raskin - a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee - insisted that the panel had "a good reputation with the American people for sticking to the facts". However, expecting criticism over the timing of the inquiry's schedule, Raskin said:

“There are those partisans of former President Trump that will denounce anything we do, so we're not going to jump through hoops to please people who will call anything we do partisan.”

Representative Stephanie Murphy - a Democrat from Florida - added that, “this effort is not political, so I am indifferent to when the election is”.

Representative Zoe Lofgren - a California Democrat - said that the committee was “just working at our own pace” and was set to release the report “when we’re ready.”

“We can't make our determination based on dates on the calendar - we've got a job to do. It's too important to just circle one date to November,” Representative Pete Aguilar (a Democrat from California) said.

Recent revelations could possibly sway voters' minds ahead of the mid-terms, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats are up for grabs.

Democrats at present have narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress, and have been attempting to boost their chances to retain control of at least one.

Democrats’ prospects for the mid-terms have somewhat improved — they’re now up to a 71 percent chance of keeping the Senate and a 29 percent chance of retaining the House, according to the 2022 FiveThirtyEight mid-term election forecast.

‘Witch Hunt’ Probe

Former President Donald Trump and the Republicans have repeatedly slammed the inquiry - commonly known as the January 6th Committee. On that day, protesters breached the US Capitol building after a rally held by Trump outside the White House at which he alleged that Democrat Joe Biden had only won the November 2020 election fraudulently.

The riot disrupted a joint session of Congress that was counting electoral votes to formalize Biden’s victory. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died as a result of the events.

Trump, who had repeatedly claimed the “rigged” 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” from him, was accused of “inciting an insurrection”, and impeached by the US House of Representatives. However, he was later acquitted by the US Senate in a trial weeks after he left office.

The 45th POTUS has called the committee's inquiry a “witch hunt”, and his GOP allies have branded it an “illicit criminal investigation into American citizens”.