Jan. 6 insurrection hearing starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern; how to watch and what to know

The House panel that has spent almost a year probing the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol is set to take its work to TV on Thursday night in the investigation’s first primetime hearing.

The spectacle, scheduled for Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern, arrives amid a cacophony of news cycles, with many Americans focused on gun violence, inflation and the possible end of national abortion protections. Memories of the stunning attack spurred by then-President Donald Trump have faded.

Violent insurrectionists loyal to then-President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. (John Minchillo/)

Here are some key details about the hearing.

How to watch

TV networks including CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC are expected to broadcast the hearing, and the panel is also set to stream it on YouTube.

Fox News, however, is not expected to air the hearing in full. In a Monday statement, the network said its “primetime programs will cover the hearings as news warrants.”

But coverage of the hearing will appear live on FOX Business Network and foxnews.com, Fox News said.

Laura Ingraham, a conservative Fox News anchor, said Tuesday: “We actually do something called cater to our audience. Our audience knows what this is.”

“We’ll cover it, and we’ll do plenty of coverage,” Ingraham said. “But it’s a theater, total theater.”

Who will testify

The hearing is to include testimony from a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was wounded in the attack, and a filmmaker, Nick Quested, who documented the siege.

Edwards endured a traumatic brain injury during the Capitol riot, according to the panel, but carried on patrolling the West Plaza despite her wound.

What lawmakers are saying

While Democrats have spun the hearing as a landmark event that will cast fresh light on a dark moment in American democracy, some Republicans have taken a nothing-to-see-here line.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted Monday that Democrats are using “taxpayer money on a TV producer for the prime time political infomercial from the Jan 6th circus.”

And Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), said Wednesday that the probe “is not about seeking the truth — it is a smear campaign against President Donald Trump, against Republican members of Congress and against Trump voters across this country.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) speaks during a Republican news conference ahead of the State of the Union on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (Jacquelyn Martin/)

“It is designed to punish Nancy Pelosi’s political opponents, and it will not prevent another Jan. 6 from happening,” Stefanik said at a news conference, referring to the Democratic House speaker.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, said the panel wants to “counter the continuing propagation of big lies.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) (J. Scott Applewhite/)

“Our goal is to present the narrative of what happened in this country — how close we came to losing our democracy,” he told CBS News in an interview aired Sunday.

“The American people, I think, know a great deal already,” Schiff added. “They’ve seen a number of bombshells already. There’s a great deal they haven’t seen.”