January 6 Committee Subpoenas McCarthy, Fellow House Republicans in Rare Escalation
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol has issued subpoenas to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other House Republicans who have declined the panel’s requests to voluntarily cooperate.
The group also subpoenaed Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
The round of subpoenas, which the committee announced on Thursday, is the first time the panel has issued subpoenas to sitting members of Congress. It is extraordinarily rare for a Congressional committee to do so.
Perry condemned the panel’s dramatic move on Thursday saying, “That this illegitimate body leaked their latest charade to the media ahead of contacting targeted Members is proof positive once again that this political witch hunt is about fabricating headlines and distracting the Americans from their abysmal record of running America into the ground.”
Representative Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), the committee’s chairman, said in a statement that the panel “has learned that several of our colleagues have information relevant to our investigation into the attack on January 6th and the events leading up to it.”
“Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily. Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th,” he added.
The Democrat-led committee, which is tasked with investigating the Capitol riot, said in a press release that McCarthy “was in communication with President Trump before, during, and after the attack on January 6th.”
The committee added that McCarthy “claimed to have had a discussion with the President in the immediate aftermath of the attack during which President Trump admitted some culpability for the attack.”
The subpoenas come weeks after leaked audio obtained by the New York Times revealed that McCarthy considered asking Trump to resign after the January 6 Capitol riot.
The recording was taken during a House Republican leadership meeting on January 10, 2021. In the recording, Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), who was the chairwoman of the Republican conference at the time, is heard asking McCarthy if there is any chance Trump would resign.
“My gut tells me no,” McCarthy responded, according to the audio. “I am seriously thinking about having that conversation with him tonight.”
“The only discussion I would have with him is I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation that he should resign,” McCarthy says, referring to the impeachment resolution in the House. “That would be my take, but I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.”
In January 2022, McCarthy said he would not voluntarily offer testimony to the House Select Committee after the panel had asked him to do so.
“As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward,” McCarthy said in a statement at the time.
“This committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation as Speaker Pelosi took the unprecedented action of rejecting the Republican members I named to serve on the committee,” he added. “It is not serving any legislative purpose. The committee’s only objective is to attempt to damage its political opponents — acting like the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee one day and the DOJ the next.”
