Who is Jamie Raskin?

Jamie Ben Raskin is an American attorney and politician serving as the US representative for Maryland’s 8th congressional district since 2017. The district is located in Montgomery County, an affluent suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extends through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border.

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Before the Jan. 6 assault, Raskin had reportedly thrown himself into stamping out the rise of white nationalism and domestic extremism in America. He trained his focus on the issue after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., five years ago.

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Since then, he has held teach-ins, led a multipart House investigation that exposed the lacklustre federal effort to confront the threat, released intelligence assessments indicating that white supremacists have infiltrated law enforcement and strategize about ways to crack down on paramilitary groups.

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Now, with millions of Americans expected to tune in, Raskin — along with Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida — is set to take a leading role in a hearing that promises to dig deeply into how far-right groups helped to orchestrate and carry out the Jan. 6 assault at the Capitol.

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Raskin has hinted at disclosing evidence of more direct ties between the former US President and far-right groups, though he has declined to preview any. The panel plans to detail known links between the political operative Roger Stone, a longtime ally of Trump’s, the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, and the extremist groups.