The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election may have held its eighth and final hearing of its summer series Thursday night, but its work appears to be far from over.

The panel says it’s continuing to investigate and that it has received a stream of new evidence since it kicked off the batch of public hearings in June. 

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said during Thursday’s hearing the committee “will reconvene in September to continue laying out our findings to the American people and push for accountability.”

Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the panel now has “considerably more to do” and “far more evidence to share.”

“In the course of these hearings, we have received new evidence and new witnesses have bravely stepped forward,” she said Thursday. “ … Doors have opened. New subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break.”

Rep. Eliane Luria, D-Va., indicated witnesses from the Secret Service are among the people the committee expects to speak with in the coming weeks. 

Among the topics the panel will likely discuss with them is the alleged physical altercation between Trump and a Secret Service agent inside the vehicle carrying the president after Trump was told he could not go to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, provided a secondhand account of the story in a June 28 hearing.

Trump and anonymous Secret Service sources have disputed Hutchinson’s description of the events, although not under oath. Luria said the committee is “aware that accounts of the angry confrontation in the presidential SUV have circulated widely among the Secret Service since Jan. 6.”

Secret Service witnesses also could be asked about the deletion of agency text messages from around the time of the Capitol attack. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General said the messages were lost “as part of a device-replacement program.” But Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., said the Secret Service confirmed in a letter this week that the texts were erased after Congress and federal investigators requested they be preserved.

Congress traditionally is on recess for much of August, but The New York Times reported Thursday that committee members are discussing using the month to prepare a preliminary report on their findings to be released in September and then issuing a final report in December before the panel is dissolved at the start of a new Congress in January.

It’s not clear how many more hearings might be in store or what they will cover.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who sits on the committee, told CNN on Friday the panel might call a hearing if it receives new information that’s “important to put in front of the American people.” He also said the panel might hold a hearing with national security experts to coincide with a report summarizing recommendations. 

Meanwhile, panel member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told CNN he hopes further investigation will shed light on why Trump was so adamant about going to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and what he expected to happen if he got there.

The committee’s hearings this summer have presented evidence and testimony painting Trump as a president so determined to remain in power that he ignored his closest advisers in pushing false claims of election fraud; pressured state officials, senior Justice Department officials and Vice President Mike Pence to help overturn the results; summoned his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6; directed them to the Capitol knowing some were armed; and then refused to call off the violent mob or order the National Guard to step in. 

Trump and congressional Republicans have blasted the investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Trump continues to falsely claim there was widespread fraud in the election.

The House does not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations, but the committee says it will use what it’s learned to propose legislation.

Kinzinger said those proposals could include clarifying the Electoral Count Act, ensuring trust in the election system, punishing individuals who attempt to undermine democracy and reforming campaign finance laws.

Raskin said the committee’s findings also should lead to lawmakers discussing whether Trump should be disqualified from running for president again. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says no one who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. can hold federal office.

The provision “is not what we call self-executing,” Raskin told CNN. “It doesn't leap off the page and execute itself. So there would have to be a legal mechanism for courts to determine whether someone had in fact participated in insurrection against the union.”

Meanwhile, eyes are on the Justice Department to see if Attorney General Merrick Garland will charge Trump and his allies with crimes.

Committee members have stressed that any criminal prosecutions are entirely up to the Justice Department’s discretion, but Kinzinger said Thursday they’ve “proven different components of a criminal case against Donald Trump or people around him in every hearing.”

Potential charges could include seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud for allegedly collecting donations for a legal fund that was never established and witness tampering.

Last week the committee said it was working to provide evidence federal prosecutors requested about the alleged scheme to put forward false slates of pro-Trump electors in battleground states that Joe Biden won. And the panel has made contempt-of-Congress and witness-tampering referrals to the Justice Department.

If new evidence comes to light in the House committee’s probe, that could signal more potential trouble for Trump.

The Justice Department does not publicly discuss investigations it might be conducting, but at a news conference Wednesday Garland reiterated he believes “no person is above the law in this country.”

“I can’t say it any more clearly than that,” the attorney general said. “There is nothing in the principles of prosecution and any other factors which prevent us from investigating anyone —  anyone — who is criminally responsible for an attempt to undo a democratic election.”

Raskin and Kinzinger made it clear Thursday they believe Trump should be charged.

“I think that as a matter of justice, it's just wrong to punish the people who are seduced by a criminal mastermind, but not the criminal mastermind himself or herself,” Raskin said. 

Added Kinzinger: “If we become a country that accepts attempts at coups and attempts at overcoming the will of the American people, we can't survive that.”