Capitol riot committee requests information from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

The House select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection has asked House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to provide information about his conversations with former president Donald Trump during the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814.

Select committee chairman Bennie Thompson made the request to Mr McCarthy on Wednesday in a letter asking the California Republican to voluntary provide information to the committee’s probe into “the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating thereto” and proposed that he meet with the committee on 3 or 4 February.

“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,” Mr Thompson wrote, adding that Mr McCarthy had previously acknowledged having at least one telephone conversation with Mr Trump while a mob of his supporters was storming the Capitol in hopes of stopping Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral college victory.

Mr McCarthy later shared an account of his conversation with a fellow GOP House member, Rep Jamie Herrera Buetler of Washington.

Ms Herrera Beutler later said in a statement that the Republican leader told her Mr Trump initially suggested to Mr McCarthy that the rioters besieging the Capitol were “antifa”. She also recounted how — according to Mr McCarthy — Mr Trump responded to the GOP leader’s report that he mob was made up of his supporters by replying: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are”.

The Republican leader initially blamed Mr Trump for the violence that day. In a speech delivered from the House floor on 13 January, Mr McCarthy said Mr Trump “should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding” and therefore bore “responsibility” for the attack.

Additionally, Mr Thompson wrote that the committee would like to question Mr McCarthy regarding Mr Trump’s efforts to “delay or otherwise impede the electoral count” by pushing members of Congress to object to electoral college votes from swing states that were won by Mr Biden.

“The Select Committee is aware that, notwithstanding the unacceptable violence that day, you nevertheless agreed to support continued objections to the electoral votes from multiple states late in the evening of January 6th and into the morning of January 7th,” he wrote adding that the committee would like to ask the GOP leader about his conversations with Mr Trump’s legal team and with Ohio Republican Jim Jordan.

The Mississippi Democrat added that the committee wishes to ask Mr McCarthy about communications with Mr Trump about the events of 6 January that occurred after Mr Trump left office, including during Mr McCarthy’s 28 January visit to the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Noting that Mr McCarthy’s public statements regarding the events of 6 January “have changed markedly” since that meeting, Mr Thompson asked: “At that meeting, or at any other time, did President Trump or his representatives discuss or suggest what you should say publicly, during the impeachment trial (if called as a witness), or in any later investigation about your conversations with him on January 6th?”

The Republican leader is the third GOP House member who the committee has sought to engage on a voluntary basis.

Two other members, Pennsylvania Representative Scott Perry and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, have refused to cooperate with the panel, which they allege is illegitimate because the only Republican members on it, Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, were chosen by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.