SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – The House select committee exploring the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has completed its first two live hearings, which were both riveting and revealing as members laid out findings from their monthslong investigation.
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The most recent hearing on Monday featured testimony from numerous officials who were around then-President Donald Trump during the 2020 election who said they tried unsuccessfully to convince him he had lost to Joe Biden. Those false election fraud claims by the former president are central to the investigation, which attempts to prove they directly fueled the Jan. 6 riots.
San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren – a Democratic member of the House select committee and a primary interviewer in Monday's hearing – joined KCBS Radio on Tuesday morning to discuss the committee's progress so far and what's to come in the six remaining hearings.
"I thought yesterday was persuasive, at least I've had some Republicans tell me that," Lofgren told Jason Brooks and Melissa Culross. "The president was spinning these lies, and yet, we knew we could hear, it was Republicans, it was Trump world, his own people telling him that there was no evidence to support the things he was saying. But he continued to say them. He knew he was lying, and he continued to do it."
The next hearing was originally scheduled for Wednesday, however committee members on Tuesday morning decided to postpone it for "technical" reasons, according to Lofgren. She added the committee is also exploring another witness and "additional information." No official rescheduled date has been announced, though Lofgren said it will occur sometime next week.
With Wednesday's postponement, the next hearing is scheduled for Thursday, which Lofgren said will examine the pressures that former president Trump put on state officials to overturn the election.
"It's really part of the overarching theme which is, as I said yesterday during our hearing, it was fundamental for every element of his scheme that people believed that he actually won, that there was rampant fraud," she explained. "Pedaling that, state officials tried to get him to overturn the votes of the people in their states to seize power, essentially."
Lofgren said that, through these hearings, she and the rest of the committee – which includes two Republicans and seven Democrats – will "tell the truth to the American people." However, she admitted they can’t force the individuals to think a certain way.
"In the end people have to make up their own minds, but as the former attorney general (William Barr) said, you can't really have a belief that’s untethered from evidence and reality," Lofgren explained. "People have to make up their own minds. I think there is no evidence to support the things that the president is saying. And if people will look at the facts, they will understand that. But I can't do that for people, they have to open their eyes and ears and look at what all of these individuals who were Trump officials are telling us."
"If people want to defend the indefensible, that's a decision they've made," she added, "As our (Republican) colleague (Wyoming Rep.) Liz Cheney said, 'One day Trump will be gone, but the dishonor that Republican officials are draping themselves with will remain.' "
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