Citing a “mountain of new information” requiring analysis, the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol announced Wednesday that it will delay the hearings into the deadly insurrection until next month.
“We’ve taken in some additional information that’s going to require additional work. So rather than present hearings that have not been the quality of the hearings in the past we made a decision to just move into sometime in July,” committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters, according to The Hill.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) explained that “there’s been a deluge of new evidence since we got started. And we just need to catch our breath, go through the new evidence, and then incorporate it into the hearings we have planned.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) attributed the delay to a “mountain of new information that’s come in and that we have to go through.”
Before pausing, the panel will hold one more round of hearings on Thursday, when witnesses will testify about efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his supporters to pressure U.S. Justice Department officials to help overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Thompson said the committee needs time to review video footage it received from documentarian Alex Holder—which reportedly includes previously unseen footage of Trump and his family—new information from the National Archives and tips received via a special hotline.
The congressman assured reporters the committee would reconvene after the House returns from recess on July 11.
“We will announce dates and times for those hearings soon,” he said.
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