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WASHINGTON (AP) — More evidence is emerging in a Jan. 6 House investigation which supports recent evidence that President Donald Trump wants to join an angry mob that marched on the Capitol building riots, a committee member said Sunday.
“There will be a lot more information coming, and stay tuned,” said Congressman Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
The committee is intensifying its year-long investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the committee’s vice chairman, made it clear that the criminal references to the Justice Department, including against Trump, may follow.
At least two more hearings are scheduled this month aimed at showing how Trump illegally directed a violent mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then failed to act quickly to stop the attack once it began.
The committee is also reviewing new documentary film footage from the final months of Trump’s administration, including interviews with Trump and members of his family.
In a television interview, Kinzinger declined to reveal the new information he was talking about and did not say who provided it. He said many more details have emerged since testimony last week by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and that nothing has altered the commission’s confidence in her credibility.
“There’s information I can’t say yet,” he said. “We would certainly say that Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath, we find her credible, and anyone who wants to cast contempt on that who was present firsthand should also testify under oath, not through anonymous sources.”
In a separate interview, another committee member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said: “We are following additional leads. I think these leads will lead to new evidence.”
In Hutchinson’s appearance before the committee last week, Hutchinson painted a picture of Trump as an angry, defiant president who tried to let armed supporters avoid security checks at a rally on the morning of Jan. 6 to protest his defeat in the 2020 election. by Democrat Joe Biden.
Legal experts said Cassidy’s testimony is potentially problematic for Trump as federal prosecutors investigate potential criminal wrongdoing.
“There may be more than one criminal referral,” Cheney said in an interview that aired Sunday. She said the committee would decide later in the process whether to proceed.
Cassidy also recounted a conversation with Tony Ornato, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for operations, who, she testified, said Trump later grabbed the steering wheel of the president’s SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him to the Capitol after the rally.
However, this account was quickly disputed. Bobby Engel, the Secret Service agent who drove Trump, and Ornato are prepared to testify under oath that neither agent was assaulted and Trump never threw himself at the wheel, a person familiar with the matter said. The person did not want to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In recent days, the committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and is seeking more information from Ornato and Engel, who had previously been interviewed by investigators.
Committee members hope Cipollone will come forward.
“He obviously has information about concerns about criminal wrongdoing, concerns about the president going to the Capitol that day, concerns about the chief of staff having bloody hands if they don’t do more to stop that violent attack on the Capitol, Schiff said. “It’s hard to imagine anyone more at the center of things.”
The committee is also working to arrange an interview with Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She was asked to speak to the committee after revelations of her communications with Trump’s team in the run-up to and day of the Capitol riot.
Kinzinger appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Schiff was on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and Cheney appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”
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For complete coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings, visit https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege
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