By Peter NicholasNBC
News
WASHINGTON — The committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol assault plans to bring spectators inside the Oval Office this Thursday afternoon.
Witnesses will describe a contentious meeting in which Justice Department leaders threatened to resign if former President Donald Trump promoted a political appointee who was prepared to back up his false claims of voter fraud.
The committee's fifth public hearing will focus on the former Republican president's effort to harness the department's muscle and legal authority as he sought to nullify the 2020 election.
[Committee Investigating Capitol Raid Exposes How Trump Tried to Force State Officials to Reverse Election]
In keeping with a message the committee has been pounding, the hearing is expected to show how America's democratic tradition survived largely because of the integrity of a few people who stood up to Trump and refused to follow his plan to retain power.
Three former top Justice Department officials who snubbed Trump at the time will testify live: Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen;
Richard Donoghue, Acting Deputy Attorney General;
and Steven Engel, who headed the department's Office of Legal Counsel.
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The three participated in a meeting in the Oval Office on January 3, 2021 - three days before the attack on Capitol Hill - in which Trump considered the possibility of removing Rosen and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, a department environment official. .
Although the department had already concluded that there was no fraud on a scale that would have influenced the election outcome, Clark was prepared "to reverse the conclusion of the department's investigation ... if appointed," a committee aide revealed. on January 6 to journalists in a conference call on Wednesday.
If Trump had fired Rosen, Clark would have sent "fraudulent letters urging state legislatures to withdraw" their certifications that Joe Biden had won those states, according to the adviser.
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“We will see that, again, President Trump only failed here because the senior Justice Department leadership team stood up and threatened to resign rather than help the president subvert the democratic process,” the adviser explained.
Trump wanted to deploy the Justice Department in various ways to help him secure a second term.
At the hearing, the panel will describe how the former president pressured the department to file lawsuits in conjunction with his re-election campaign, which in the aftermath of the November election tried to challenge Biden's victory through the courts.
Former President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on a screen during a hearing investigating the Jan. 6 assault on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 16, 2022. Tom Brenner/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The committee will also detail how Trump wanted the department to appoint a special counsel to investigate voter fraud cases, a request officials rejected.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 3 pm ET and is expected to last about two hours.
More hearings are scheduled for July and will focus on Trump's actions when a mob stormed the Capitol, among other issues.
However, the remaining schedule appears to be in flux, in part due to new information and leads that are hitting the commission's tip line after the first public hearing on June 9.
[Committee Investigating Capitol Assault Says It Has Enough Evidence to Prosecute Trump]
One of the new pieces of evidence the committee is examining is a video shot by British filmmaker Alex Holder during the campaign.
The video includes interviews with Trump and members of his family, along with former Vice President Mike Pence.
The panel is likely to highlight the images at a future hearing.
Trump has not testified before the committee, and is not expected to, but has used his megaphone to undermine the panel's work.
He has accused members of selectively editing testimonials to make him look bad.
In a speech in Nashville, Tennessee, last week, Trump said: "This is a one-sided witch hunt."