The Committee Decided They Would Meet Again Next Monday
Jan. 6 select committee to see on next steps, move on subpoenas
Chairman Bennie Thompson said he expects the first wave of subpoenas "soon."
A mean solar day after its first hearing with emotional testimony from police officers brought the Jan 6. Capitol attack back into the national spotlight, the House select committee investigating the assault will encounter this week on possible next steps, including issuing subpoenas.
"I take no reluctance whatsoever in issuing subpoenas for data," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Midweek morning, asserting the commission "absolutely" has the authority. "Goose egg is off limits in this investigation."
His comment comes after the Section of Justice said in letters to erstwhile DOJ officials and provided to congressional committees that they can participate in investigations related to Jan. 6, according to sources and messages reviewed by ABC News Tuesday, which the House Oversight Committee later on confirmed. Therefore, if witnesses try to fight subpoenas, they may have to practise and then on their own dime.
"Members of Congress accept already admitted that they talked to the White House while information technology was going on. At present many of them are trying to walk back the conversation they had," Thompson said. "We plan to pursue information technology."
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who sits on the committee, told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that the committee had not ruled out calling Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has criticized the committee and was vetoed from it by House Speaker Pelosi over comments she said would damage its credibility, to testify.
Jordan admitted on Tuesday evening that he -- like GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy -- spoke to former President Donald Trump on the telephone on Jan. 6, and in another interview Wednesday with Ohio Spectrum News reporter Taylor Popielarz, confirmed he spoke to Trump on Jan. 6.
Asked by Popielarz if he spoke to Trump earlier during or afterwards the attack, Jordan said he didn't remember.
"I spoke with him that twenty-four hour period. After? I think after. I don't know if I spoke with him in the morning time or non. I just don't know," he said. "I don't know when those conversations."
Fox News host Brett Baier also pressed Jordan Tuesday on whether he spoke to Trump that day, and Jordan repeatedly deflected, saying he'southward "talked to the one-time president umpteen times -- thousands, endless times."
Baier followed up, "Merely I mean on January 6, congressman."
"Yep," Hashemite kingdom of jordan said. "I mean, I've talked to the president then many -- I tin't remember all the days I've talked to him, but I've certainly talked to the president."
Conversations in Trump's orbit, such equally the apparent call with Hashemite kingdom of jordan, are key to what the commission is seeking to investigate, with Cheney saying Tuesday that Americans should know what happened "what happened every infinitesimal of that day in the White House."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi affirmed the committee's subpoena power in her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill, but distanced herself from the committee itself as Business firm Republican leaders disparaged the 2 GOP members who joined the console every bit "Pelosi Republicans."
When asked what will happen if Business firm members don't comply with subpoenas, Pelosi emphasized she is non involved with the select committee and "has non been a party to any of those decisions, and then I cannot tell yous what they might determine."
The speaker besides dismissed concerns that there volition be political backlash if the committee's work drags out or loses momentum, asked if she would like to see the committee movement more than expeditiously.
"They will take the time that they need," she said. "We were very belatedly in getting to this because nosotros were striving for the bipartisan committee, which nosotros thought was very possible."
While lawmakers have a 7-week recess coming up, Thompson said Wednesday that the committee will see again to talk over its next steps this week.
"Nosotros'll accept a meeting before we break for the August recess, but in reality, I think you know nosotros'll be back during that recess doing our work because we accept to get to the lesser of it," he told MSNBC. "Our democracy depends on information technology."
At its get-go hearing, the committee heard from iv officers who recounted they feared for their lives on January. 6 as they were brutally beaten and outnumbered by a pro-Trump mob. One officer described fearing he would be "torn autonomously" and chants of "kill him with his ain gun." Another said he was taunted with racial slurs in uniform for the first time in his career.
They all criticized lawmakers who accept downplayed the attack and pleaded with the panel to uncover if those in power aided and abetted rioters, including the onetime president.
"There was an assail on Jan. 6, and a striking human being sent them," said Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn. "I want y'all to get to the bottom of that."
Democrats are already coming to the defense of the officers afterward right-leaning cable news hosts attacked the testimonies as performative Tuesday night.
"Stupidity has no accomplish. It tin can go anywhere. Information technology's unfortunate that people would translate the dauntless people who defended the Capitol as somehow disingenuous in their presentations," Thompson said Wed.
Republicans leaders dismiss hearing
While Capitol police officers watched the hearing on TVs and phones in the hallways of the building that was attacked, Republican leaders who blocked efforts to investigate the 24-hour interval dismissed the hearing as a political play and said they didn't sentinel.
Senate GOP Mitch McConnell, who said after the attack that the "mob was fed lies" and "provoked by the president and other powerful people," said he was "busy doing work" during the hearing.
"I don't run across how I could have expressed myself more forthrightly than I did on that occasion, and I stand up by everything I said," he said.
McCarthy, who held an upshot outside the Capitol ahead of the hearing as a preemptive strike to the officers' testimony, told a Politico reporter he wasn't able to because he was stuck in "back-to-back meetings."
Notably, McCarthy has suggested Pelosi didn't exercise enough to secure the Capitol that day, but McConnell, as leader of the Senate, has non faced the same criticism. Security at the Capitol is controlled by the Capitol Police force Board.
GOP Rep. Matthew Rosendale of Montana told ABC News he but watched the opening statement from Cheney, who was ousted as the No. 3 House Republican earlier this yr following her criticism of Trump'south role on Jan. 6.
"I was quite disappointed," he said, before launching into a series of questions he wanted to exist answered.
But because Republicans gave up their ability to participate in the hearing, with McCarthy withdrawing all of his members, they couldn't lead the discussion in their preferred direction.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif, who sits on the commission, blasted Republicans to ABC News who chose not to hear from the officers who helped protect them.
"For Kevin McCarthy and for my colleague from Montana to just say, 'Oh I didn't have the time to spotter this hearing,' you know, is just unfortunate and sad, and they simply desire to play politics with this," he said. "That's all this is."
Aguilar added the public can expect more public hearings to come up, though the date for the committee's next hearing has not yet been announced.
ABC News' Alex Mallin, Katherine Faulders and Ben Siegel contributed to this report.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jan-select-committee-meet-steps-move-subpoenas/story?id=79118740