Tracy Pearson, expert legal analyst, joins Cheddar News. 

What to Expect From Final January 6 Hearing Before Midterms

So joining us now is legal analyst Tracy Pearson Tracy. Good to have you here as always before we jump into what we expect today. I mean it's been a while since this committee hearing has been together recap some key points from the last hearing just to get everybody up to speed here. Well, good morning baker. It's great to be with you and thank you for having me. The last hearing dealt with Donald Trump's involvement during the course of the January six event. So it fixated on his lack of following through on his, on his duties as president, his fixation on the destruction of the capital. His comments about vice former vice President Pence when he said that he was, he failed him as he was walking out of the residence early in the evening as they were trying to clean things up at the capitol. So this was a hearing that focused primarily on Donald trump's behavior during the course of the day and obviously this hearing itself gonna feature evidence that trump and his allies according to politico were pushing him to declare victory on election day, even before the votes were counted were likely also not gonna get any sort of live testimony today. But indications seem to be that maybe ginny thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence thomas is going to play a role here. What sort of you think we're gonna hear from her in this? I think we're going to hear that she still believes that the election was stolen. We are not going to see her. I expect that what we will see are probably snapshots of deposition transcripts and what we may hear is investigators who read and were present during the course of her testimony, summarizing or paraphrasing what she told them. Uh and obviously there have been several key people of interest in this investigation. Rudy Giuliani Ivanka trump others as well. Has there been one interview in particularly you say have been has been a major key piece throughout this investigation thus far. I felt that Cassidy Hutchinson, her testimony was a bombshell testimony. She really provided insight into what was going on leading up to the insurrection on January six and and afterwards during and afterwards. Things like what Donald Trump wanted to do, which was to go up to the capital and the Secret Service's response to that his behavior during the day. His Chief of Staff's lack of involvement in trying to control the situation in the White House. And certainly the White House Counsel's Office pleading with anybody that they could find to intercede to try to stop this. We know the panel unlikely to make any sort of formal referral to the Justice Department. We know the Justice Department already engaging in their own investigation right now. There have been key members on this committee that have said they have said that they believe that former President trump violated multiple laws. But what happens after this committee gets disbanded here, potentially what happens is sort of the next stage of what happens after this. So what they are going to do is four of the committee members are attorneys and they're tasked with determining what if any referral to make with the Department of Justice. And I think it's important for people to understand the Department of Justice doesn't need a referral. As I've said on cheddar before the Department of Justice was investigating. They were doing it quietly, they weren't doing it in public and they're still investigating. And so the question is whether they will make this referral and what what they'll say. Additionally, they are going to come to some sort of consensus on what legislative efforts need to be taken to try to avoid this in the future. So those are the two primary tasks as well as writing that final report. And my understanding is that Ari Melber MSNBC of the beat has been tasked with writing the introduction to the report which is scheduled to ship as of now on november 29th Tracy. The other large question in all of this is will there be any sort of consequences for former president trump? Will maybe an indictment come down the road? There was this incredible report in the atlantic this week, maybe detailing that potentially Merrick Garland, the attorney general just based on his sort of ethos, which is always following the rule of law, likely will indict the former president here, be it for the documents in mar a Lago potentially january 6th of a myriad of other things. What do you think happens here? Do you think the former president gets indicted? Wow, you're gonna ask me to predict. And I don't generally predict things. But what I will say is that I think that there is sufficient evidence that I have seen to indict the former president. Now I want to be careful here. We keep referring to him as a former president and he is he's a private citizen. He's like you or he's like me and he is subject to following the laws and so he is also subject to accountability. And Merrick Garland is all about accountability. Yeah. And it also makes that job incredibly difficult for somebody like Merrick Garland to sort of decide what to do here, especially if let's just say former President Trump decides to run again in 2024. Makes it a very difficult proposition. Tracy. Pearson. Good to have you here. Legal expert joining us from Los Angeles. Thank you so much Tracy.