The U.S. Senate will begin this Tuesday a series of hearings on the attack on the Capitol, which took place last January 6, in which the main officials who responded to that violent action will testify.
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Paul D. Irving and Michael C. Stenger, former sergeants-at-arms of the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, will take part in Tuesday's session. They both resigned after the events and are being scrutinized by legislators and law enforcement officials.
That hearing will be the first of several organized by Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and chair of the Administration Committee, and Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, who heads the Homeland Security Committee. These lawmakers will be joined by the top Republicans on the respective panels, Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri and Rob Portman of Ohio.
In the first Congressional hearing on the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, police chiefs and House and Senate Sergeants at Arms acknowledge they were blindsided by lack of intelligence pic.twitter.com/ogdxnswDvb
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) February 24, 2021
During the joint session of the two senatorial committees, legislators will have the opportunity to question the officials responsible for security at the federal building.
At the time of the violent action, both houses of Congress were meeting to certify Joe Biden's victory in the November 3 elections. The session was taking place amid unsubstantiated accusations by then-President Donald Trump, a candidate for re-election, that widespread fraud allegedly robbed him of victory.
Tuesday's hearing will be the first time the public will hear from the two top security officials on Capitol Hill that day, who resigned after the attack. Irving and Stenger came under scrutiny amid reports that they did not act quickly enough to call out the National Guard.
The committees will also hear from Steven A. Sund, former chief of the Capitol Police, who also resigned after the attack, and Robert J. Contee, head of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Despite intelligence information revealing violent plans by right-wing militias and extremist groups that supported President Trump, law enforcement officers were outmanned and under-equipped during the riots.
The U.S. Capitol Police announced Friday that it suspended six officers and is investigating 35 others in connection with their actions in response to the attack on that federal building that killed five people on Jan. 6.