Richard Cowan and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – A congressional panel looking into the Jan. 6th, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill will host hearings that probe details of what they claim was a plot to derail the 2020 election by Donald Trump.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives Committee investigating Trump’s riot laid the foundation for five hearings. These will examine the people and groups it claims were involved in the plotting of the riot. Also, testimony will be focused on Trump’s activities prior to and during the attack.

The committee will begin Monday at 10:00 ET/1400 GMT. It will examine Trump’s claim that his defeat against Democrat Joe Biden was caused by unfounded allegations about election fraud.

On June 15, the third hearing will be focused on Trump’s attempts to replace U.S. Attorney General in order to put together a Department of Justice team to support his false election claims. According to someone familiar with the matter, Jeffrey Rosen is the Acting Attorney General at that time.

Trump called William Barr, the former Attorney General of Texas, “weak” and “frightened” on his Truth Social Internet Platform. Barr quit in December 2021, and claimed that he hadn’t seen any evidence of election fraud.

Trump denied that he caused the Capitol to be stormed or that he endorsed the crowd’s calls for him to “hang”. He also did not endorse the crowd’s shouts of support for Mike Pence as he performed the ceremonial function of officially certifying the election results.

‘VIOLENT MOB’

Pence will be the focus of the fourth hearing on June 16th. The last two will examine “How President Trump summoned violent mobs and instructed them illegally to march on Washington, D.C. Capitol,” Cheney stated.

Tens of thousands of protestors attacked the Capitol, many of them waving Trump flags while wearing Trump’s signature gear. This delayed the certification of the election by hours. It also injured over 140 officers and resulted in several deaths.

This was the first time that U.S. power wasn’t passed from one president to the next in American history.

Although the committee has yet to name additional witnesses, Cheney stated that upcoming hearings would include testimony by senior Justice Department officials and White House officials who have threatened to resign due Trump’s actions.

Cheney said that Scott Perry was also involved in the attempt to reverse the election and sought a pardon from Trump. Cheney said that “multiple” Republican Congressmen sought pardons as well, but she didn’t name them.

Representatives for Perry and The Select Committee declined to comment on Cheney’s statement or any other Republicans thought to have asked Trump to pardon them.

Jamie Raskin of the Democratic Committee said that these requests are an explicit statement of guilt.

“Are we going to have political elites unleashing mobs in order to try to attack the results of the election and seize the presidency?” He asked.

The hearing was not attended by Republican legislators.

However, the Conservative Political Action Conference dismissed the work of this committee as “witch hunting.”