Kevin McCarthy’s Jan. 6th Coverup is Underway
The man who wants to be
speaker of the House refuses to cooperate with the Jan. 6th investigation.
MAY
31, 2022 4:46 AM
Conditioned to accept
the idea that most Republican officials are zombified “ultra MAGA” automatons for former President Trump, House
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy seems to be getting a pass for stonewalling
the January 6th Committee.
He shouldn’t.
Politically convenient subservience to Trump isn’t enough of an excuse for
McCarthy anymore.
More than 1,000 people
have cooperated with the Jan. 6th Committee. Yet, McCarthy, one of the few
people who spoke with Trump as the attack was underway, refuses to be one of
them. Why is this seen as acceptable?
The GOP House leader
made his position plain on Friday, when he signaled his intention to defy a
subpoena from the committee. In doing so, he has transformed from a powerful
party loyalist who could claim he was merely doing the former president’s
bidding into an active participant in the coverup.
Recall that in the
waning days of Trump’s presidency, McCarthy said that Trump “bears
responsibility” for the attack. Shortly after making that statement, McCarthy
changed his mind.
Within days he traveled
to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about winning the House majority in 2022.
McCarthy issued a statement saying, “President Trump’s popularity has
never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than
perhaps any endorsement at any time.”
What’s more, McCarthy
said he had no regrets about tanking an independent, 9/11-style, bipartisan commission of the
attack. After Speaker Nancy Pelosi then moved to create the House Jan. 6th
Committee, McCarthy withdrew his all picks when Pelosi rejected his selections of Reps.
Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to serve as two of the five GOP members. (Note:
Jordan has been subpoenaed by the committee as well. Choosing someone
to serve on the committee who was also a target of the committee was an
understandable non-starter for any worthy investigation. Additionally, Banks has since engaged in questionable behavior which proves why Pelosi was wise to nix
him, too.) McCarthy has, nevertheless, blasted Pelosi for structuring the
committee to “satisfy her political objectives.”
McCarthy’s opposition to
the committee led to the entire Republican caucus voting against establishing
it, with the exceptions of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Kinzinger’s Illinois district was eliminated by Democrats. McCarthy then
targeted Cheney, endorsing her primary opponent after he greenlit her removal from GOP leadership and then
installed Trump apologist Elise Stefanik in her place.
So why the change of
heart? The Jan. 6th Committee wants to know; McCarthy won’t tell.
On January 12, 2022, the committee sent
McCarthy a letter asking for his voluntary cooperation
regarding his communications with Trump before, during, and after the attack.
It said:
Despite the many substantial concerns you
voiced about President Trump’s responsibility for the January 6th attack, you
nevertheless visited President Trump in Mar-a-Lago on January 28th (the
impeachment trial began on February 9, 2021). While there, you reportedly
discussed campaign planning and fundraising to retake the House majority in
2022. The Select Committee has no intention of asking you about electoral
politics or campaign-related issues, but does wish to discuss any
communications you had with President Trump at that time regarding your account
of what actually happened on January 6th. Your public statements regarding
January 6th have changed markedly since you met with Trump. 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?
McCarthy declined a
voluntary interview. The committee sent McCarthy and four other Republican
members of Congress subpoenas on May 12. In response, McCarthy’s lawyer sent the
committee an 11-page letter on Friday, questioning the committee’s legality and
constitutionality and making other arguments previously rejected by the courts.
Although the committee
has stated many times that “our investigation will inform our specific
legislative recommendations, and ensure that we can take action to prevent
another January 6th from ever happening again,” McCarthy’s lawyer, Elliot S.
Berke, rejected the idea the committee had any legislative purpose.
“Its only objective
appears to be to attempt to score political points or damage its political
opponents—acting like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee one day
and the Department of Justice the next,” Berke wrote.
Berke closed his letter
with a request: that the committee give McCarthy a list of all topics and
subjects it would like to discuss, as well as copies of “all documents” the
committee would like to ask about, along with the “constitutional and legal
rationale” for each of those requests.
Which is lots of
lawyer-speak for people who bill by fractions of the hour.
What this request really
meant was that McCarthy has absolutely no intention of acting as a cooperative
witness. He wants information from the committee; he doesn’t
want to give them any.
McCarthy, by his own account, pleaded with Trump to call off the rioters as the attack was underway. Despite
McCarthy’s request, the attack (inexplicably) went on for more than three hours.
McCarthy can speak to
what Trump’s state of mind was during that pivotal time; he may have knowledge
about why the Capitol was not quickly secured. What did Trump say when McCarthy
begged him for help? Why is that being kept a secret? How could any official
sit on this information—let alone a man who could very soon be speaker of the
House?
Also, how in the world
did McCarthy go from blaming Trump for the attack to championing him
for the midterms? No one in Washington with McCarthy’s level of power has
flipped harder and faster on such an important question than McCarthy did in
those short days. It stands to reason that if McCarthy had an honorable explanation,
he would be proud to give it. So what is he hiding?
These questions, and
more, need to be answered. Hopefully, some of them have already been answered
by the hundreds of people who have spoken to investigators.
For now, one conclusion
can be safely made in light of House Republican Leader McCarthy’s explicit
refusal to talk. The GOP’s Jan. 6th coverup is still happening,
even now.
Whether the coverup has
succeeded or not will soon be revealed. The Jan. 6th Committee will be holding
hearings during primetime beginning on June 9.