Former Vice President Mike Pence is likely to be a central figure in the House Select Committee hearing over the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. 

Pence will not be present at a prime-time hearing on Thursday, but he will be a key to the hearing as several details have emerged about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021 when a pro-Trump mob attacked the US Capitol to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.

Several of Pence’s former aides have directly cooperated with the committee in their investigation.

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“I anticipate that we will hear about Mike Pence on Thursday night. You can’t tell the story without him,” Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, said.

Pence left while rioters hurled the Capitol halls and chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” The House committee plans to focus on Pence’s key role preceding the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021

Late last month, the New York Times reported that Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short alerted Secret Service the day before the attack about the potential security risks to Pence should Trump publicly turn on his vice president.

The committee is likely to make the threat to Pence a central part of its presentation.

Michael Luttig, a conservative lawyer who advised Pence on handling his duties on Jan. 6, as well as former Pence aides Marc Short and Greg Jacob are among those expected to appear as witnesses during Thursday’s hearings.

“So, the other way that Pence comes in is as a dose of reality in response to these lunatic legal theories that were circulating. So that’s an important part of the narrative,” Eisen said.

Meanwhile, Pence has repeatedly referred to Jan. 6 as a “dark day” in history. In February, Pence explicitly said Trump was wrong to suggest he could overturn the result of the presidential election.

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“Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024,” Pence said at the time. 

Pence, however, has not cooperated with the committee so far. 

“We have wanted to make sure that we get as much information as possible from as many material witnesses as possible,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Monday during a Washington Post Live event when asked about the prospect of Pence testifying.  

“We want to figure out exactly what happened. And Vice President Pence was obviously the object of this political onslaught on Jan. 6, so we need to fill in the details as much as possible about what happened there.” 

“Watch the hearings,” Raskin said. “The hearings will tell a story about what took place on that day.”