House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks during a weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, November 18, 2021.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Wednesday asked Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to voluntarily provide information to that panel about events preceding, during and after that attack on Congress.
The request to McCarthy, R-Calif., comes after the committee sought information from two other GOP House members, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry, both of whom have refused to cooperate with the probe.
And it came on the same day as Kayleigh McEnany, who had served as White House press secretary under then-President Donald Trump, met virtually with the Jan. 6 committee, according to a source who spoke with NBC News.
Among other things, the panel wants information from McCarthy about discussions he had with Trump and McCarthy’s support to continued objections to the certification of President Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 election in the hours after the rioters left the Capitol.
The committee noted Wednesday that McCarthy “was reportedly in communication with” then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters of stormed the Capitol complex, disrupting for hours the confirmation by Congress of Biden’s victory.
“We also must learn about how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attempted to alter the results of the election,” wrote Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee, in a letter to McCarthy.
“For example, in advance of January 6th, you reportedly explained to Mark Meadows and the former President that objections to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6th ‘was doomed to fail,’ ” Thompson wrote.
Thompson also asked McCarthy for information detailed in various news reports that he had encouraged Trump to take action to stop the riot while it was underway.
And the panel chairman asked McCarthy about reports that Trump had acknowledged his culpability for the violence that day.
A spokesman for McCarthy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Thompson told reporters on Wednesday that, “we think he’ll voluntarily come forward” to cooperate, instead of making the committee compel McCarthy to do so with a subpoena. The chairman said he would consider issuing a subpoena to McCarthy if he did not answer the panel’s questions.
On May 20, McCarthy said, “Sure,” when a reporter asked him if he would be willing to testify about his conversation with Trump on Jan. 6 “if you were asked to do so by an outside committee.”
The House voted in December to hold Meadows in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena issued by the committee.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Sevanny Campos
