Here are the six members of the House who have been contacted by the committee and what the committee wants to learn.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
Read the committee’s letter from Jan. 12.
The focus of the committee’s interest in McCarthy appears to be the call he had with President Donald Trump as the riot was underway. At the time, McCarthy told other members of the House Republican caucus that Trump had chastised him for being less worried about the 2020 election results than the rioters. He has generally declined to offer more detail on the call in the months since.
The committee’s argument is that the conversation could show Trump’s “state of mind” during the riot. In its letter, the committee notes that McCarthy also said that Trump accepted “some degree of responsibility” when they spoke, a potential indication of some culpability for what unfolded.
McCarthy’s conversations with Trump both before and after the day of the riot are also mentioned. He had reportedly told Trump that his objections to the election were “doomed to fail,” according to reporting from Jonathan Karl of ABC News. If true, it reinforces the idea that Trump should have known that his election claims were false, a central component of proving that Trump’s efforts to derail his ouster from office had a corrupt intent. After the riot, McCarthy again spoke with Trump, including a call in which McCarthy implored the president to stop making false claims about the election.
In the months since the letter was sent, more information about McCarthy’s post-riot conversations with his colleagues — including committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — has emerged. The committee has expressed interest in learning more about those conversations as well.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Read the committee’s letter from May 2.
One of the questions that has lingered around the riot is the extent to which members of Congress were sympathetic to or explicitly supportive of what unfolded. Biggs was one of the first representatives directly implicated in working with those planning events for Jan. 6, when protest organizer Ali Alexander claimed that Biggs had participated in planning calls before the event.
This is a central issue in the committee’s letter to Biggs. A number of members of Congress were identified by rally planners as potential speakers, but the implication from Alexander and other organizers is that Biggs had a more important role. The congressman has denied the allegations, but the committee’s letter claims that it has received testimony indicating that Biggs was involved. What’s more, the letter states that Biggs was involved in the broader effort to subvert the electoral vote count, including by sending a text message to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Nov. 6, 2020, proposing alternate slates of electors.
Most intriguingly, the letter extends reporting that Biggs sought a post-riot pardon from Trump to suggest that this request may have been validated by “former White House personnel.”
Read the committee’s letter from May 2.
Brooks was one of a few people selected to speak during Trump’s rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. But it’s comments made more recently that have piqued the committee’s interest.
After Trump rescinded his endorsement of Brooks’s Senate bid, the…
Read More: What the Jan. 6 committee wants to know from members of Congress
