Democrats are preparing to reveal the results of their investigations into the January 6 Capitol riot during primetime on Thursday evening, hinting at “disturbing” details previously unknown to the public.
Lawmakers on the House’s Jan. 6 committee have hired the former president of ABC News, James Goldston, to promote its findings as a “blockbuster investigative special,” Axios reported.
Republicans like Indiana Rep. Jim Banks insist that the committee has never actually cared about addressing security failures at the United States Capitol and that the probe has always “been a witch hunt and a Trojan horse effort to advance radical left wing agenda like abolishing Electoral College.”
“The sham January 6th committee is grasping at straws, just like the two failed impeachments,” Banks told The Daily Wire early Monday afternoon. “They’re trying to turn their investigation into a taxpayer-funded TV special, instead of getting to the bottom of January 6th because they don’t want to uncover inconvenient truths about Speaker Pelosi’s role in the security failure at the Capitol.”
Goldston, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire, reportedly joined the committee as an unannounced adviser. He intends to make the findings “raw” enough that journalists will deem them credible but also sensational enough to capture the attention of Americans who have not followed the matter closely.
The former ABC News president’s role in Thursday’s rollout has raised the ire of Republicans who have derided the hearings as “a partisan scam,” like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who critiqued Democrats on Monday for using “taxpayer money on a TV producer for the prime time political infomercial from the Jan 6th circus.”
Instead of focusing on $5 gas,6000 illegal immigrants a day,record fentanyl deaths,or the violent criminals terrorizing America democrats use taxpayer money on a TV producer for the prime time political infomercial from the Jan 6th circushttps://t.co/A6G9ZlMdIf #axiosam pic.twitter.com/RXOUr7RHFg
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 6, 2022
“That commission is a scam. I think it’s a complete partisan scam. And I think anyone who committed a crime on January 6 should be prosecuted and if convicted, put in jail,” Rubio said earlier this year. “I do not believe that we need a congressional committee to harass Americans that weren’t even in Washington on January 6, that were not in favor of what happened on that day, have condemned what happened on that day, but they want to smear them anyway.”
Thursday’s hearing will reportedly include both pre-produced videos and live witnesses, Axios reported, as well as the unveiling of never-before-seen official White House photographs of the riot and surveillance footage.
“It is extremely broad. It’s extremely well organized. It’s really chilling,” Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (R) told CBS “Sunday Morning” this weekend, describing the breach as an “extremely well-organized” conspiracy.
“There will be, I think, substantial evidence that really demonstrates the coordination and the planning and the effort, despite the fact that they understood that Donald Trump lost the election and even once the insurrection began and the violence began, there were ongoing efforts to persuade the former President to stop the violence and call on folks to go home, and he refused to do it,” Democratic Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island told CNN on Saturday.
Lawmakers have conducted more than 1,000 depositions and interviews, gathered at least 140,000 documents, and followed up on 472 tips that the committee received through its tip line, according to the publication, which predicted that the hearing “has the makings of a national event.”
Republicans plan to counter the hearings with their own primetime programming.
“We’re working very closely with President Trump and his team with Leader Kevin McCarthy, with Jim Jordan, and really all of the House Republicans will be pushing back in a rapid response fashion,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik told Breitbert News.
“You will see us all over the airwaves, we will be setting the record straight. We will be telling the truth to the American people sharing the facts and also really pointing out how unprecedented and unconstitutional and illegitimate this committee is,” the New York Republican added.
A made-for-TV witch hunt, just like impeachment.
Democrats never change! https://t.co/X5kUhEqeyx
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) June 6, 2022
In late May, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused Democrats of “weaponizing” the committee, indicating that Republicans cannot cooperate with an ideologically motivated investigation.
“For House Republican leaders to agree to participate in this political stunt would change the House forever,” Jordan and McCarthy wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.
“Every representative in the minority would be subject to compelled interrogations by the majority, under oath, without any foundation of fairness, and at the expense of taxpayers,” they added. “The American people deserve better than Democrats’ weaponization of its majority rule.”
McCarthy and Jordan argued that the committee is “packed” with partisan lawmakers “working behind closed doors and selectively leaking cherry-picked information.”
“With no effective check on its power, the Select Committee is trampling on fundamental Constitutional rights,” they wrote. “It is investigating the political speech of private citizens and demanding access to their personal records and private communications. When disputes over the requests arise, the Committee refuses to engage and seeks to punish.”