January 6 hearing will show Trump pressure campaign on Pence ‘directly contributed’ to Capitol attack, committee says

By Jeremy Herb, Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer and Ryan Nobles, CNN

The House January 6 committee will use its third June hearing to make the case that then-President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on his vice president to overturn the 2020 presidential election “directly contributed” to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, which put Mike Pence’s life in danger, aides said on Wednesday.

Committee aides said Thursday’s hearing will focus on how Trump had driven the pressure campaign against Pence despite being told by lawyers in the White House counsel’s office that the vice president did not have the authority to unilaterally subvert the election results.

The committee plans to move from the origination of the theory put forward by Trump attorney John Eastman that Pence had the authority to overturn the election results through Trump’s weeks-long pressure campaign that led to the insurrection.

Aides said that the hearing would include new materials about what Pence was doing on January 6, including his whereabouts.

Committee aides said they also intend to demonstrate at the hearing that there’s an “ongoing threat” to democracy from people advocating the false view that the 2020 election was rigged.

Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence when he was vice president, and J. Michael Luttig, a retired judge and informal Pence adviser, will testify before the committee on Thursday. While former Pence chief of staff Marc Short is not testifying Thursday, aides said that his deposition testimony is expected to be shown.

Much of Thursday’s presentation will be led by Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California. A committee counsel also will be asking questions during Thursday’s hearing.

Committee aides said the panel once again planned to weave live witness testimony with depositions the panel has on video. On Tuesday, the committee teased video from former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann saying that he had told Eastman on January 7 that he should “get a great effing criminal defense attorney.”

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

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