Three new questions for the 6 January committee

"The select committee investigating the Capitol riot on January 6 spent its first prime time hearing last week trying to convey the stakes to the American public, mostly by illustrating just how dangerous and deadly the riot was. But the second week of committee hearings has mostly focused on how the Trump administration pushed the “Big Lie” – first the effort to sell it to the American public, and then the campaign by Donald Trump and certain of his lieutenants to force then-vice president Mike Pence into overturning the 2020 election results in Congress on 6 January.

Yesterday’s session showed how Mr Trump’s legal team, led by attorney John Eastman, tried to force the vice president to subvert the election results on 6 January and remarked that “there’s been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or protect the republic”.

It was a seismic and harrowing hearing, and spelled out Mr Eastman’s machinations in stunning detail. But the committee is now entering new territory: the Department of Justice has criticized the committee for not delivering witness transcripts, and the panel has said it wants Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to testify".