The House Jan. 6 committee’s second of several public hearings kicked off Monday morning with a delayed start and one of the witnesses backing out due to a “family emergency.”
Originally set to start at 10 a.m. ET, the hearing started at 10:46 a.m. ET. The committee said Monday morning that former Trump campaign manager William Stepien, one of the scheduled witnesses, will not appear after all when his wife went into labor, Stepien’s lawyer said.
“Due to a family emergency, Mr. William Stepien is unable to testify before the Select Committee this morning,” the committee said in a statement. “His counsel will appear and make a statement on the record.”
In addition to video of Stepien and his counsel, former Fox News political director Chris Stirewalt, who was let go by Fox News shortly after the 2020 presidential election, during which his team correctly called Arizona for Joe Biden before other networks had, will also appear Monday.
There will also be a panel of witnesses featuring election attorney Benjamin Ginsberg, former U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia BJ Pak, who resigned effective Jan. 4, 2021, and former Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt.
Some of the witnesses are expected to provide testimony about the basic logistics of election litigation and how such action usually proceeds. A committee aide said the committee will also demonstrate that the Trump campaign aides used the election fraud claims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars between the election and Jan. 6th. And finally, the aide said, the committee will show that “some of those individuals responsible for the violence on the 6th echoed back those very same lies that the former president peddled in the run up to the insurrection.”
Committee aides said Monday’s hearing will focus on the “Big Lie,” documenting how former President Donald Trump declared victory on election night despite being told he didn’t have the numbers to win, and how he continued to embrace baseless claims of election fraud.
Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said last week that the second hearing will show that “Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had, in fact, lost the election.”
