January 6 committee taps ex-news exec to make hearings ‘a blockbuster investigative special’

The panel’s first public hearing in more than a year opens at 8pm ET on Thursday

The House January 6 select committee has enlisted the aid of a veteran television news leader in hopes of making Thursday’s prime time hearing an explosive display of unseen material that will captivate even the most unengaged viewers.

According to Axios, the panel has brought on as an adviser James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, whose resume includes service as executive producer for the renowned Good Morning America and Nightline programmes.

Mr Goldston, a skilled documentarian with decades of experience presenting compelling stories in a televised format, is reportedly producing Thursday’s 8pm ET (12.00 am GMT) hearing “as if it were a blockbuster investigative special”.

Axios has reported that Mr Goldston has set out to render the committee’s Thursday night presentation “raw enough so that skeptical journalists will find the material fresh, and chew over the disclosures in future coverage” while “draw[ing] the eyeballs of Americans who haven't followed the ins and outs” of the nearly year-old House investigation.

The select committee has previously used the few public sessions it has held to unveil material it has received from the more than 1,000 witnesses who have chosen to cooperate with its’ investigation.

At normally prosaic “business meetings” used to approve contempt of Congress resolutions against ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows committee members have taken the opportunity to release evidence such as text messages received by Mr Meadows from journalists, right-wing media personalities, and even members of former president Donald Trump’s family.

The panel has a significant amount of unseen evidence it can disclose Thursday, including never before seen photographs taken by official White House photographers following Mr Trump and former vice president Mike Pence on the day of the worst attack on the Capitol since Major General Robert Ross ordered British troops to burn it in 1814.

It also has access to surveillance video taken throughout the Capitol complex that day. While some of that video was made public during Mr Trump’s second impeachment trial, only a small portion of that evidence has been revealed.

Additionally, the select committee could use video taken during depositions of ex-Trump administration officials, including the ex-president’s daughter-adviser Ivanka Trump and her husband, former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.