The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill held their final public hearing of the summer last week – but the lawmakers are far from done with the investigation into that fateful day.
“Even as we conduct our ninth hearing, we have considerably more to do. We have far more evidence to share with the American people, and more to gather,” committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said at last Thursday’s hearing. “So our committee will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts before convening further hearings this September.”
And continue they have. On Thursday, the committee will hear testimony behind closed doors from former Trump official Mick Mulvaney, he confirmed to CBS News, where he works as a contributor.
Mulvaney served in a number of positions under Donald Trump – first as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, then as director of the Office of Management and Budget before becoming acting White House Chief of Staff – and resigned his post as U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland in the wake of the riot.
While Mulvaney was not in the White House on Jan. 6, he told CBS News that he believes the testimony of witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson, the 26-year-old who served as a top aide to Mark Meadows, who was acting as Trump’s chief of staff at the time of the insurrection.
In late June, Hutchinson painted a vivid picture in front of the House committee of the inner workings of the White House in the days leading up to and on Jan. 6, speaking of how those in top positions – including Meadows and the president himself – were aware of the violence unfolding at the Capitol, but refused to take action.
"She's a lifelong Republican," Mulvaney told CBS News of Hutchinson. "She worked for Ted Cruz. She worked for Steve Scalise. She was in the White House for four years. There's no reason for her to lie."
The committee has also heard testimony from former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to ABC News and CNN, and is also reportedly working to secure testimony from other top officials in the Trump world, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to ABC News.
Both Pompeo and Mnuchin were reported to have discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, according to Jonathan Karl of ABC News in his book “Betrayal.”
The two men were not alone in discussing invoking the 25th Amendment. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary at the time, previously told USA Today that she raised the issue with Pence, which would have required the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet to agree that the president could no longer fulfill his duties.
DeVos, in her resignation letter on Jan. 7, 2021, blamed Trump for inciting the mob. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she wrote.
Other high-level Trump officials the committee is reportedly working with include former director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and former acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf, per ABC News.
The committee is also preparing a report focused on the National Guard’s response to the violence at the Capitol that day, which will shed light on the security flaws that contributed to the breach, committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told POLITICO in a Thursday interview. The report will likely be released in August.
Lawmakers on the committee have also been working to secure an avenue to share witness testimony transcripts and other pertinent information with the Department of Justice.
"We’ve put a template together for sharing information, sharing it with Justice,” Thompson told POLITICO. “My understanding is, there’s general agreement on it.”
Earlier this week, numerous outlets reported that the DOJ has begun to seek witness testimony about Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, including his repeated attempts to pressure vice president Mike Pence to unilaterally overturn the results of the election and Trump’s efforts to bring forward a false slate of electors from Georgia to certify the state in his favor.
The Washington Post first reported on the investigation from the Justice Department.
A possible Trump prosecution is a matter for the Justice Department, but the committee has used its hearings to try to make a case about his political viability as he mulls running in 2024. Some of the most damning testimony aired by the committee has come from Trump’s own top Republican advisers, military leaders and confidants, who admitted to a loss of confidence in his judgment and dedication to the rule of law in the days leading up to and after the Jan. 6 attack.
The committee has shown much of that testimony in recorded videos during its hearings, including from former attorney general Bill Barr, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, former Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller and labor secretary Eugene Scalia.
Ultimately, Thompson said Thursday, the committee intends to make most of its information public.
“All this is produced for the most part by taxpayer dollars, at some point the whole world will have access to it,” he told POLITICO.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.