January 6 committee taps former ABC News president to help with Thursday night's televised hearing: report

• The January 6 House Select Committee is working with a former ABC News executive, per Axios.
• They picked James Goldston, who served as president of the news division from 2014 to 2021.

Former ABC News president James Goldston is working with the January 6 House Select Committee as an informal advisor to as they map out their initial findings in a hearing scheduled for prime-time TV audiences on Thursday night, according to Axios.

Goldston, who was at the helm at ABC News from 2014 to 2021, has been tasked with tailoring the first hearing for a wider audience that will be tuned in starting at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, Axios reported. Normally, Congressional hearings start during regular business hours, though there are exceptions to that rule.

Although not an official committee staff member, Goldston has been producing the presentation "as if it were a blockbuster investigative special," according to Axios' Mike Allen.

Goldston's other major roles at ABC were on the shows "20/20," "Nightline," and "Good Morning America."

Over the past year, the House committee conducted in private more than 1,000 interviews and reviewed over 125,000 records, with some of those findings leaking to the press. Most recently, Politico reported on testimony from a former Trump White House aide who said she witnessed then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents after meeting with a congressman who was seeking to help overturn the 2020 election results.

The committee is expected to air previously unseen footage from the day of the insurrection as well as pretaped interviews, including with some Trump family members.

They also have official White House photographs from the day that have not been seen publicly before, according to the Axios report.

Thursday will mark the first formal findings from the committee tasked with investigating the origins of the Capitol siege and ways to prevent such an event from happening in the future during the nation's peaceful transition of power.

In all, the House panel plans to hold six hearings in June, though more sessions are possible if warranted, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee's chairman, told Insider on Friday.

"If there is something we think that's of value that a hearing could amplify, we are absolutely open to doing it," Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said in an interview. "It's our democracy that stands to lose if we don't get it right."