Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, announced that he would not cooperate with a request from the House select committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riot, a few hours after the Panel asked California GOP leader to voluntarily provide information, including necessary details about the state of mind of the former Republican President Donald Trump during the attack at the U.S. Capitol and in weeks after.
In a Wednesday night statement, McCarthy said that as a leader of the minority party and representative in the Senate, it is with neither satisfaction nor regret that he concluded to not participate with the abuse power of the select committee that destroys this institution today and will harm it in the future.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denied cooperating with the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot. The panel asked him to provide information regarding the January 6th event voluntarily.https://t.co/goNi2um2Pg pic.twitter.com/O0fmqSKX68
— Live News Now (@LiveNewsNow6) January 13, 2022
Furthermore, the GOP leader argued that the House select committee is not conducting a legal probe by citing the rejection of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of some of his picks to serve on the Panel. He also claimed that the board is not serving any legislative purpose. The request of the investigative committee to McCarthy marks a significant moment in the current probe as the Panel is now requesting cooperation from the top GOP leaders in the House.
The Panel is seeking ways how Trump tried to alter the 2020 elections result?
A Democrat from Mississippi, the committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, wrote that the committee must find knowledge about how the plans of the former president for January 6th came together and all the other ways he tried to change the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. Such as, in advance of January 6th, the committee reportedly clarified to the former president and Mark Meadows (the former White House Chief of Staff) that objections to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6th, 2021, doomed to fail.
The letter referred to many previous remarks of McCarthy following the violence, including interviews where he conversed his talks with the former president as the riot unfolded. Moreover, the Panel made clear that it wants to question McCarthy about his communications with the former president, White House staff, and others in the one week after the January 6th riot, specifically regarding Trump’s state of mind at that time.
Source: Web
Impeachment of Trump
In addition, the letter states that the Select Committee has contemporary text messages from several witnesses recognizing significant concerns following the riot. It appears that you may be discussed with the former president the possibility he would face a censure resolution, removal, or impeachment under the 25th Amendment of the U.S. constitution. In the letter, the committee traces the public comments of McCarthy since the riot and questions whether the former president pressured him to change his tune when they met in January 2021.
Previously, CNN reported an expletive-laced call between the former president and McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack on January 6th. Donald Trump said the protestors worried more about the 2020 presidential election results than McCarthy. Furthermore, the Biden government and Democrats intend to turn back any Democratic votes in the Senate for challenging bills by GOP Senator Ted Cruz.