Lofgren says next Jan. 6 hearing will focus on riot ‘minute by minute’

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Sunday said the next public hearing by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will focus on how the rioting unfolded “minute-by-minute.”

In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Lofgren said Thursday’s hearing will shine a light on what happened throughout the day of the attempted insurrection.

‘We hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn’t happen on that day, and people can make their own judgment,” Lofgren said.

Lawmakers on the panel have already accused Trump of failing to call off the riot for hours despite repeated calls from several allies to do so. Thursday’s hearing may reveal more evidence of what the former president was doing that day.

The House panel also presented evidence that Trump may have encouraged armed rioters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the testimony of a former White House aide. A former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified Trump also lunged for the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle demanding his Secret Service detail take him to the Capitol to join his supporters.

The agency has said they would respond to the committee about Hutchinson’s account but so far has not done so.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office sent a letter to lawmakers saying they were unable to recover “many” text messages from the Secret Service because the agency had deleted them as part of a department-wide device replacement program.

The House panel has subpoenaed the Secret Service for the text messages and other information, which they expect to get by Tuesday.

The Secret Service denied they deleted messages maliciously, but Lofgren told Raddartz it was “crazy” the federal agency didn’t backup the data.

“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be,” she said. “We need to get this information to get the full picture.”

Lofgren said lawmakers will continue to investigate the Capitol attack and will issue a preliminary report and a final report by the end of the year.

“We’re going to plow ahead and get our job done, find all of the facts and then lay all the facts out for the American people,” she said.