Trump 'chose not to act' as mob attacked, Jan. 6 committee says

As the House select committee's last scheduled session gets underway, Steve Bannon, a former top political adviser in Donald Trump's White House, is currently on trial for defying a subpoena in connection with its investigation.

Bannon was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 panel for records and testimony and ultimately charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress.

His defense attorney, David Schoen, said in court Thursday that Bannon wanted to testify but decided not to based on the advice of his attorney at the time, who reportedly told Bannon that "executive privilege had been invoked and he was not permitted by law to comply with the subpoena."

The House committee and federal prosecutors have said the executive privilege claims never covered Bannon, since the insurrection occurred long after he left his post as chief White House strategist in 2017.

Ahead of the contempt trial, Bannon had said he would be willing to testify in a live, public hearing.

Closing arguments and jury instructions in the trial are planned for Friday morning.

A revelation about deleted text messages by the Secret Service is looming large over Thursday’s hearing.

The House committee subpoenaed the agency earlier this month for text messages sent on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021. But the agency said most of those records were lost in a planned data migration.

So far, the Secret Service has provided a single text exchange to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general investigating the agency's record-keeping, according to an agency letter to the House Jan. 6 committee obtained by ABC News on Wednesday.

The committee is suggesting the Secret Service broke federal records keeping laws. Hours before the hearing, news broke that the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has turned the inquiry into a criminal investigation.

The House select committee plans to focus Thursday night's hearing on what it says was Trump's dereliction of duty to act to stop the insurrection.

"It's obvious the president was derelict in his duty, but for all the details you have to watch," Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who is co-leading the hearing, told ABC Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., on Thursday morning teased snippets of depositions previewing testimony from Kayleigh McEnany, former press secretary; Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellog, then-national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence; Molly Michael, Trump's former executive assistant; and Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel at the time.

In the montage, the former White House officials recall how Trump was in the private dining room off the Oval Office watching television as the violence unfolded.

"To the best of my recollection, he was always in the dining room" McEnany said in her deposition.