The Jan. 6 Committee Would Like to Have a Word with Kevin McCarthy

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for a voluntary meeting on Tuesday.

The committee sent McCarthy a letter which asked him to offer testimony about his conversations with former President Donald Trump leading up to the event.

The letter stated:

On June 30, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted House Resolution 503, establishing the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (the “Select Committee”). The Select Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating thereto.
We write to request your voluntary cooperation with our investigation on a range of critical topics, including your conversations with President Trump before, during and after the violent January 6th attack. You have acknowledged speaking directly with the former President while the violence was underway on January 6th. And you summarized your conclusions regarding President Trump’s conduct on January 6th in a speech you made January 13th on the House floor.

The letter quoted McCarthy, who a week after the riot stated, “The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

Alisyn Camerota reported the news on CNN Newsroom Tuesday afternoon shortly after the committee’s letter was made public.

During CNN’s coverage of the breaking news, network congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles broke down the committee’s request from McCarthy:

This is no doubt a significant development in the investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection. The committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, just telling a group of reporters a few minutes ago… that the committee is prepared to send the minority leader a letter requesting that he appear before the committee and also provide specific information about what he knows about the events leading up to and on Jan. 6.

Of course, McCarthy is a central player in all of this. We know that he spoke to the former president Donald Trump on the phone during the insurrection. He was also at the nexus of the battle between hard-line Republicans that were working to object to the certification of the election results and, of course, he is a key ally of the former president Donald Trump and someone that was intimately involved with the president during the election, after the election and then leading up to January 6th.

Nobles noted that McCarthy remains a “close ally” of Trump, adding:

There are a number of house Republicans that are part of his conference and his caucus that remain very close with the former president. Now this would be the third republican member of congress that the committee has requested information from. They’ve also requested information from Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jim Jordan of Ohio. So far both Perry and Jordan have rejected those overtures from the committee. They believe the committee is illegitimate because of the way it was formed and that it does not have the Republican representation, that McCarthy asked to be a be a part of it. Of course, the committee does not agree with that. They believe it’s their responsibility to participate. Of course, the big question here is, how do they get McCarthy to cooperate with the committee?

Watch above, via CNN.