Setting the stage... Ed Pilkington in New York and Lauren Gambino in Washington report: The directors are hoping that the storyline will have all the elements of a TV smash hit: a King Lear figure ranting and raving as his power slips away from him, a glamorous couple struggling to rise above the fray, shady characters scheming sedition in hotel bedrooms, hordes of thugs in paramilitary gear chanting “hang him” as they march on the nation’s capitol. When the US House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection opens its hearings on Thursday evening, it will do so in prime time and with primetime production values. The seven Democrats and two Republicans – shunned by their own party – who sit on the panel are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to seize the public’s attention. They have brought onboard a former president of ABC News, James Goldston, a veteran of Good Morning America and other mass-market TV programmes, to tightly choreograph the six public hearings into movie-length episodes ranging from 90 minutes to two and a half hours. His task: to fulfill the prediction of one of the Democratic committee members, Jamie Raskin, that the hearings “will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House”. To amplify the event, activists are hosting dozens of public watch parties in living rooms and union halls across the country. A “flagship event” will take place at the Robert Taft Memorial and Carillon in Washington, where attendees can watch the hearing on a jumbotron while enjoying free Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. Insurrection put "centuries of constitutional democracy at risk" – committee chair Hugo Lowell Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House January 6 select committee, will open tonight’s hearing by emphasizing that the world is watching to see whether America can continue to be the standard bearer for liberal democracy after the Capitol attack. “We can’t sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat, but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us: ‘We the People.’ And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people,” Thompson will say. He plans to continue: “So tonight, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. There are those in this country who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great: devotion to the Constitution, allegiance to the rule of law, our shared journey to build a more perfect Union. “January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here. America has long been expected to be a shining city on a hill. A beacon of hope and freedom. A model for others—when we’re at our best. How can we play that role when our own house is in such disorder? “We must confront the truth with candor, resolve, and determination. We need to show that we are worthy of the gifts that are the birthright of every American.” As the country prepares for the first primetime hearing held by the January 6 committee, some groups are already looking ahead to how those who participated in the Capitol attack can be held accountable. The progressive group Our Revolution has sent letters to 51 state election officials, asking them to “enforce the Constitution and bar criminal insurrectionists from the ballot”. “The American people cannot stomach any more political theater. The hearings alone won’t help Democrats win the midterms — unless it results in action,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution. Our Revolution is staging demonstrations outside elections officials’ offices in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Colorado, and the group has already filed legal complaints against lawmakers who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. “The power to enforce the Constitution in this matter lies with state election officials who are obligated to bar insurrectionists from serving in government,” Geevarghese said. “The evidence is clear - former President Trump and some Members of Congress incited and assisted the insurrection.” Key themes of US Capitol attack investigation Hugo Lowell How deeply was Trump involved? What Trump knew, and when he knew it, has been a driving focus for the select committee. House investigators have come to the conclusion behind closed doors, say sources familiar with the matter, that Trump was the common thread for all efforts to overturn the election. The panel has evidence about a number of potentially unlawful schemes, including the plot to seize voting machines or the plan to send fake electors to Congress to potentially persuade the then vice-president, Mike Pence, to refusing to certify states with “duelling” slates. But the central question has long been whether Trump had advance knowledge – through his network of political operatives – of the Capitol attack. That remains unanswered, but it appears he did know of the political plan to stop Biden’s election certification. Did Trump violate the law? As the investigation progressed, the select committee appeared to indicate that it had amassed enough evidence of potential criminality on the part of Trump as he sought unsuccessfully to return himself to the White House for a second term. At a business meeting last year, the panel’s vice-chair, Liz Cheney, suggested by reading from the US criminal code that Trump, by failing to stop the Capitol attack through “inaction”, violated a federal law that prohibits obstructing a congressional proceeding. A federal judge earlier this year ruled that Trump and a lawyer, John Eastman, who advised the former president on post-election legal strategies, on a preponderance of evidence, probably also overtly conspired to obstruct Congress and defraudthe United States. Is the evidence enough for charges? The question to consider at the hearings is whether the select committee appears to have the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump and his top advisers committed felonies – either for an obstruction charge, or other related crimes. The final conclusions about the strength of the evidence will probably come after the hearings, when the panel releases its final report, currently slated for September, and whether it shows corrupt intent on the part of the former president – a key benchmark. The select committee will also decide at that stage whether to make criminal referrals for prosecution. But regardless of the referrals, whether Trump or anyone else is charged with crimes related to January 6 remains a call for the justice department alone. The House select committee’s first pimetime hearing on the Jan 6 insurrection will air tonight at 8pm Eastern Time. But one network won’t bee carrying the broadcast: Fox News. Rupert Murdoch’s network will stick with its usual programming of Tucker Carlson Tonight. My colleague David Smith writes: Trump loyalists are expected to flood the airwaves with claims that the January 6 select committee lacks credibility and Democrats are out of touch with more pressing concerns such as inflation, crime, border security and baby formula shortages. Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday: “They are scrambling to change the headlines, praying that the nation will focus on their partisan witch-hunt instead of our pocketbooks. It will not work.” In what amounted to an attempt at a prebuttal, Stefanik described the January 6 committee as “unconstitutional” and “illegitimate” and designed to “punish” the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opponents. She criticised its decision to hire James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, to help make its presentation compelling. “This further solidifies what we have known from day one: this committee is not about seeking the truth - it’s a smear campaign against President Donald Trump, against Republican members of Congress, and against Trump voters across this country.” The comments set the template for Republican counter-programming on conservative media such as Fox News, Newsmax, the One America News Network, Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and other outlets that will seek to portray the hearings as a sinister show trial in which Trump supporters are the victims. Congress’s January hearings aim to be TV spectacular that ‘blows the roof off’Read more Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House judiciary committee, wrote on the Federalist website: “The committee’s real goal, and what it hopes to achieve with its unprecedented subpoenas and its bright-light hearings, is a repudiation of conservatism and all those who hold conservative values.” Today so far We’re hours away from the January 6 committee’s first hearing, but already, there’s been a plethora of news, ranging from the negotiations in Congress over gun control legislation to President Biden’s trip to Los Angeles to the ongoing hunt for people involved in the attack on the Capitol. Here’s a recap of what has happened so far: President Joe Biden called the attack on the Capitol a “flagrant violation of the constitution,” and said tonight’s hearings will show Americans details of the insurrection that they didn’t know about before. No deal was announced on gun control legislation demanded in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, but senators are continuing to negotiate. Earlier in the day, the top Senate Democrat sounded optimistic, though he acknowledged the measure was unlikely to contain all the provisions his party is demanding. NBC News reported that a bipartisan Senate deal may be near to fix legal loopholes that could exploited by a political candidate to steal an election. The FBI arrested a Michigan Republican candidate for the party’s gubernatorial nomination on charges related to his involvement in the January 6 attack. Ryan Kelley was charged with “disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds”. The average price of a gallon of gas is nearing $5 a gallon, a symbolic threshold it has never before passed. The nationwide spike is likely to only worsen Biden’s approval ratings, which a recent poll found had hit an all-time low. The blog is now being handed over to Maanvi Singh on the west coast, who will take you through the start of Congress’s inquiry into the Capitol attack, starting at 8pm eastern. With hours to go until the January 6 commission begins meeting, my colleague Hugo Lowell has an explainer that’s worth reading for its details into the hearing’s purpose and what comes after tonight: The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is scheduled on Thursday to hold the first of six public hearings where it will unveil new evidence collected against Donald Trump and a range of other operatives over the course of its 10-month inquiry. The congressional investigation into the events of January 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, has said it has evidence to suggest Trump violated the law to overturn the 2020 election results. What are the January 6 committee hearings? Likened to the Watergate hearings, the select committee is holding six public hearings to reveal the mountain of evidence it acquired over the course of the sprawling investigation, which interviewed more than 1,000 people and reviewed more than 125,000 documents. The first and last hearings are due to be shown in prime time in America in a move that may cement them in popular culture as a genuine and high-profile effort to warn of a past and ongoing threat to US democracy. Speaking of the Trump administration, CNN is reporting that the two new Air Force Ones the former president commissioned are facing production delays because part of its paint scheme would interfere with its operations. The new presidential jets have faced a host of issues since Trump ordered them in 2018, so much so that Boeing’s CEO has said taking the contract was a mistake. CNN reports that the project is late and over its budget, and has faced issues including a shortages of workers with the right security clearances and a dispute with a subcontractor. Now there’s a problem with its paint job. Here’s how CNN puts it: Trump had criticized the jet’s current color scheme, which has changed little since the Kennedy Administration, particularly the light blue stripe that runs the length of the plane. Trump instead wanted a red, white and dark blue palette that more closely matches the colors of the US flag. But it turns out the darker blue — which some observers say is similar to the color scheme on one of Trump’s personal jets — poses challenges to the military planes’ sophisticated electronics system that ensures the president can stay in secure communication with officials on the ground — even in the case of a nuclear attack. “The paint scheme in question was one of many possible livery colors proposed,” an Air Force spokesperson told CNN Thursday. “Further analysis concluded darker colors, among other factors, on the underside of the VC-25B aircraft might contribute to temperatures exceeding the current qualification limits of a small number of components.” Donald Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos contemplated an effort to invoke the 25th amendment and remove him from office following the January 6 insurrection, she said in an interview. Speaking to USA Today columnist Ingrid Jacques, DeVos said she opted to resign after concluding her effort would fail: “I spoke with the vice president and just let him know I was there to do whatever he wanted and needed me to do or help with, and he made it very clear that he was not going to go in that direction or that path,” DeVos says. “I spoke with colleagues. I wanted to get a better understanding of the law itself and see if it was applicable in this case. There were more than a few people who had those conversations internally.” Once she understood removing the president was pretty much impossible, DeVos resigned later that day. DeVos wasn’t alone in considering using the amendment that provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness, after a majority vote by the cabinet. Trump’s secretary of state and Treasury secretary reportedly pondered doing the same following the attack on the Capitol. Neither ultimately acted. Trump was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House in the final days of his term, but the Republican-led Senate acquitted him. Biden calls January 6 "flagrant violation of the constitution" Americans will learn new details of the January 6 insurrection at tonight’s hearings, Biden said, calling the assault on the Capitol, a “flagrant violation of the constitution.” “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. There’s a lot of questions, who’s responsible, who’s involved. I’m not going to make a judgment on that,” Biden said during a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. “A lot of Americans are going to be seeing for the first time some of the detail of what occurred” at the night’s hearing, the president added. Michigan police officer charged with second-degree murder in shooting of Patrick Lyoya A police officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan is facing second-degree murder charges for the shooting death of Patrick Lyoya, a Black man who was shot in the back of the head while on the ground. From The New York Times: Christopher Becker, the Kent County prosecuting attorney, said the officer, Christopher Schurr, acted unreasonably when he shot Mr. Lyoya, 26, while wrestling with the motorist, who had run away. The officer told Mr. Lyoya he pulled him over for having license plates that did not match his car. “Patrick Lyoya immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to pursue the American dream and provide a better and safer life for himself and his family,” Ben Crump, a lawyer for the family, said in a statement when the videos were released. “Instead, what found him was a fatal bullet to the back of the head, delivered by an officer of the Grand Rapids Police Department.” Lyoya’s father described the the killing as an “execution.” Footage of the altercation was caught on Becker’s body camera. An unintended consequence of the recent congressional push for gun control legislation is that a bill to boost domestic semiconductor production has been put on the back burner, Bloomberg reports. The proposed legislation would spend $52 billion to spur domestic manufacturing of the vital computer chips that ran short globally during the pandemic, exacerbating supply chain issues in the United States and driving up inflation. It would also contain provisions to help American businesses compete against China. But with senators so focused on a bipartisan agreement to better regulate guns following recent mass shootings, and with midterms in which Democrats could lose control of one or both chambers of Congress growing nearer, Bloomberg reports that lawmakers are finding little time or use for the talks: Supporters say that without passage, the US will fall further behind other countries in making the components of everything from fighter jets to vacuum cleaners, putting it at the mercy of overseas supply chains. Frustration with the Biden administration looms large on Capitol Hill and among business lobbyists who have pushed for the measure. Senators and other people close to the negotiations said the White House has not pressed hard enough on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in her chamber to finish the legislation. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat who faces a tough re-election contest, said he’d like the White House to get more involved, especially with the House. Republican supporters of the bill, too, have been puzzled by the White House’s strategy, saying Biden’s team hadn’t pushed House Democrats more forcefully and let months go by without throwing their weight behind what was supposed to be a top priority. Despite earlier optimism from the chamber’s top Democrat, it does not look like senators will reach a compromise on gun control today. Biden has started his day in Los Angeles with a speech to business leaders, where he encouraged them to focus on sustainability in the face of intensifying climate change. One state away in Arizona, The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani reports officials fear heat deaths as temperatures in the largest city Phoenix are expected to top 110F in the coming days: A dangerous heatwave is due to scorch large swaths of Arizona for the rest of the week, triggering the first extreme heat warning of the year as temperatures in Phoenix are forecast to top 113F (45C) on three consecutive days. Day and nighttime temperatures are expected to reach 7F to 10F (4C to 6C) above normal for this time of the year, which could drive a surge in medical emergencies and deaths as people struggle to stay cool amid soaring energy prices and rising homelessness. Extreme heat is America’s leading weather-related killer, and Phoenix, in Maricopa county, is the deadliest city. The January 6 commission will in its hearing tonight try to show that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia groups worked together on attacking the Capitol, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports. The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is expected at its first hearing on Thursday evening to connect the far-right Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia groups in the same seditious conspiracy, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The move by the panel and chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy would likely be one of the major revelations that comes from the hearing, which is expected to focus on the militia groups and how they made plans to storm the Capitol, the sources said. Top members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been charged separately by the justice department with seditious conspiracy, but the select committee’s intention to show that their efforts were connected would escalate the gravity of the plans to attack the Capitol. The day so far Thanks for sticking with us through a morning packed with news, as Washington prepares for new revelations from the January 6 committee this evening. Later this afternoon, President Joe Biden is scheduled to address the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Here’s what’s happened in the day so far: Senators may be nearing a deal on gun control legislation demanded in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, the top Senate Democrat said, though he acknowledged the legislation was unlikely to contain all the provisions his party is demanding. NBC News reported that a bipartisan Senate deal may be near to fix legal loopholes that could exploited by a political candidate to steal an election. The FBI arrested a Michigan Republican candidate for the party’s gubernatorial nomination. While it is unclear what the charges are, Ryan Kelley was in Washington on January 6, 2021 and local media reports that there are signs he may have taken part in storming the capitol. The average price of a gallon of gas is nearing $5 a gallon, a symbolic threshold it has never before passed. The nationwide spike is likely to only worsen Biden’s approval ratings, which a recent poll found had hit an all-time low. US average gas price nearing $5 a gallon In a sign of the ongoing inflation threat, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is closing to surpassing $5 a gallon in the United States, an all-time high that poses implications for the wider economy and may worsen Biden’s low approval. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price of a gallon of regular gas is today at $4.97, though GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan say it has already passed the symbolic threshold. “People are still fueling up, despite these high prices,” AAA spokesman Andrew Gross said earlier this week. “At some point, drivers may change their daily driving habits or lifestyle due to these high prices, but we are not there yet.” The gas price spike is attributable to the US economy’s overall recovery from the pandemic downturn in 2020 as people returned to driving and traveling nationwide, but it grew markedly worse earlier this year when Russia invaded Ukraine and western nations imposed sanctions that roiled global oil markets. Rightly or wrongly, many Americans see gas prices as a proxy for the wider economy’s health, and as they hit new heights, Biden is increasingly being blamed for the spike. Tomorrow may be a pretty rough day for the White House. Any damning revelations that come out of the January 6 committee could be overshadowed by the latest inflation numbers from the Labor Department, which will be released at 8:30am eastern time. The May consumer price index data may very well indicate that the worst bout of inflation the US economy has seen since the 1980s isn’t ending anytime soon, nor will its potently negative effects on the president’s support. In fact, his approval is now at an all-time low, according to Morning Consult/Politico data released yesterday. The list of factors fueling inflation is lengthy, and ranges from the war in Ukraine’s economic ripple effects to the Biden administration’s own policies to the Federal Reserve’s decisions to keep rates low throughout last year, which were beyond the White House’s control. One thing’s for certain: the Republican opposition will no doubt seize on tomorrow’s data — whatever it shows — to argue Biden is a poor steward of the world’s largest economy. Ahead of its release, the White House has tweeted a video highlighting Biden’s efforts to lower ocean shipping costs, which are part of the wider global supply chains snarls and indeed a factor in America’s inflation problem.