Matthew Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser under Trump and the highest-ranking White House official to resign on Jan. 6, 2021, is expected to testify about that day at the House select committee’s prime-time hearing on Thursday, the New York Times reports. Pottinger, who was in the White House much of the day of the riot, is one of the live witnesses for the hearing. He and Sarah Matthews, a former White House deputy press secretary who also resigned on Jan. 6 are also expected to help narrate what was unfolding inside the West Wing more than three hours in which Trump watched violence at the capitol unfold without taking and substantial steps to call off his supporters, even as they threatened Vice President Pence. The hearing, scheduled for 8 p.m., is expected to give a detailed account of how Trump resisted multiple pleas from staff members, lawyers and even his own family to call off the attack.
Matthews is expected to, among other things, speak to the efforts to get Trump to issue a statement, people familiar with the planning said. Pottinger, like Matthews, has previously given a videotaped interview to the committee, describing what he saw that day. Snippets from both of their interviews have been played at hearings the committee has held in recent weeks. The committee has said it will use this hearing to lay out Trump’s “dereliction of duty” that day. Among the things that Pottinger discussed with the committee was a visit he made to the Oval Office with the riot well underway sometime after 3 p.m., while Trump was in the small dining room adjacent to it. This involved efforts to get the National Guard deployed to the Capitol. Pottinger resigned a short time later; he told the committee that he did so after Trump issued a tweet attacking Pence as the riot was unfolding. Pottinger stayed a few hours into the night so he could finish specific work before he departed.