Kinzinger gets his star turn on Jan. 6 panel
by Mychael Schnell - 06/23/22 2:08 PM ET
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the most outspoken critics of former President Trump, will get his star turn on the Jan. 6 select committee Thursday when he leads the panel in laying out the case that Trump tried to pressure the Department of Justice (DOJ) into overturning the results of the 2020 election.
The six-term Illinois congressman is one of two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, serving alongside Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel.
Both lawmakers broke with Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol riot. Since then, they have not shied away from hammering the ex-president and his top allies in the party, including their own congressional colleagues.
While Kinzinger’s prominence on the committee has been overshadowed to a degree by Cheney, who led the first hearing that laid out the panel’s case and has been a key figure in subsequent proceedings, his time at the microphone on Thursday is expected to make headlines, when the GOP congressman questions former Trump DOJ officials who rejected the then-president’s pressure campaign to keep himself in power.
Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel are all slated to testify in-person.
The presentation will also put fissures within the GOP on full display, when the American public watches a Republican lawmaker — who has been lambasted by some and lionized by others in the party — argue that a former Republican president tried to use a federal agency to remain in power despite losing a legitimate election.
The hearing comes nearly 11 months to the day that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped Kinzinger to serve on the panel, solidifying the break between the Illinois congressman and a bulk of the Republican Party.
But the fracture began well before that.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3534704-kinzinger-gets-his-star-turn-on-jan-6-panel/
