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ABC Action News legal analyst weighs in on January 6 hearings

Capitol riot
Posted at 9:57 PM, Jun 09, 2022
and last updated 2022-06-10 06:44:41-04

TAMPA, Fla. — The House Select Committee said it has compiled evidence from more than one thousand closed-door interviews and more than 100,000 documents regarding the January 6 attack on the capitol.

Jeffrey Swartz, a WMU-Cooley law professor and ABC Action News legal analyst, said the hearings will likely reach middle America.

"To those people who are not so pro-Trump that they won't listen and those people who are not so anti-Trump that it really doesn't matter. It's about the people in the middle who have to weigh ultimately their decisions as to whether they support or don't support the activities of those people on January 6 and whether those people should be punished," said Jeffrey Swartz.

On Thursday, the House Select Committee will hold the first of several congressional hearings on the deadly attack on the capitol.

"Congressional hearings are really for a number of reasons. They're fact-finding, the fact-finding may be for purposes in this case determining what really happened, what the fault was. The second part of that fact-finding is legislation to make sure whatever what wrong doesn't go wrong again," said Swartz.

The Justice Department has arrested and charged more than 800 people for the violence that day, the majority from Florida.

Swartz said the congressional hearings are not legal proceedings, but could still have legal ramifications and lead to litigation later on.

"What led up to January 6, who put it together, how did this come about, who directed what, who was actually involved, who actually prompted these people to basically commit an insurrection," said Swartz.

"You can't storm the capitol, you can't commit an insurrection against the United States government," he added.