June 28 (UPI) — The House Jan. 6 committee will hold a hearing Tuesday that was a late addition to the schedule following a surprise announcement that promised to present new evidence.
The committee announced the new session on Monday afternoon, saying it will “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.” The panel did not elaborate, but said it will hear from an unidentified witness.
The new hearing is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 1 p.m. EDT.
NBC News, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the unknown witness will be Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
In recorded testimony at a hearing last week, Hutchinson told the committee that several Republican lawmakers had sought pardons from President Donald Trump after the attack at the U.S. Capitol. They included Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Last week, Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters that the committee would not hold another hearing until July. At the time, he said that the panel had obtained new evidence that includes hours of additional video footage of Trump and his family members from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder.
The footage includes interviews with Trump, his adult children and former Vice President Mike Pence as well as scenes from the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, The Washington Post reported.
Thompson added that the committee had been in contact with Ginni Thomas — a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who contacted top White House officials after the election and urged them to find a way to keep Trump in power — about testifying before the committee.
During the panel’s last meeting Thursday, it heard testimony that Trump had considered replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department environmental lawyer who supported Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.
Federal investigators searched Clark’s home last week as part of an investigation by the Justice Department into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. John Eastman, a former Trump attorney, also said in a court filing Monday that federal agents had seized his phone.
