House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane Ian

The House January 6 select committee has postponed what was expected to be its final public hearing on Wednesday.

The hurricane, forecast to reach category 4, is heading for the Tampa area, which has not suffered a direct hit from a major storm since 1921.

Committee members had been expected to arrive in Washington for rehearsals before the hearing.

Reports said the hearing would feature footage in which the Trump ally Roger Stone would be shown to have predicted violence between right- and leftwing activists and to have forecast long before the 2020 election that Trump would seek to stay in power.

The Wednesday hearing was intended to close the series of public sessions the nine-member committee began in early June.

The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee have sought to show the American public how Trump ignored many of his closest advisers and amplified his false claims of election fraud after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

The committee has said its work is not done. During the August recess, investigators continued to interview witnesses, including several Trump cabinet members, some of whom discussed invoking the constitutional process outlined in the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection.

Questions surrounding the effort to overturn the election remain unanswered.

The committee has also secured an interview with the conservative activist Ginni Thomas, who is married to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.

Lawmakers want to know more about her role in trying to help Trump overturn the election. She contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin as part of that effort.

By the end of the year, the committee is expected to turn over a comprehensive report that will include legislative reforms to help prevent a future attempt to subvert democracy.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted that Kyle Young, from Iowa, had admitted to help in the assault of a police officer. She gave him credit for the 17 months he has already been held, meaning he will serve nearly six years in prison.

The harshest sentence, 10 years, was given to a former New York City police officer who assaulted an officer at the Capitol with a metal flagpole.

About 900 people have been charged in the Capitol attack and more than 400 have pleaded guilty or been convicted.

Young cried as he apologized to Michael Fanone, a former DC Metropolitan police officer, and said he wished he could take back his actions.