Capitol investigation committee seeking interview with Ivanka

The committee investigating the US Capitol insurrection is asking Ivanka Trump, daughter of former president Donald Trump, to voluntarily co-operate with its probe.

The committee sent a letter yesterday requesting a meeting with Ms Trump, who served as an adviser to her father, in early February.

In the letter, committee chairman Bennie Thompson says she was in direct contact with her father during key moments on January 6 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to halt certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win.

The committee says it wants to discuss what Ivanka Trump knew about her father’s efforts to pressure then-vice president Mike Pence to reject the 2020 election results, including a telephone call they say she witnessed.

They also want to discuss concerns that she may have heard from Pence’s staff, members of Congress and the White House counsel’s office about those plans.

The panel cited testimony that Ms Trump implored her father to quell the violence by his supporters and said it wants to ask about her actions while the insurrection was under way.

“Testimony obtained by the committee indicates that members of the White House staff requested your assistance on multiple occasions to intervene in an attempt to persuade president Trump to address the ongoing lawlessness and violence on Capitol Hill,” Mr Thompson writes.

The letter is the committee’s latest attempt to seek information from inside the Trump family as it widens its investigation.

Earlier this week, it issued subpoenas to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team who filed bogus legal challenges to the 2020 election that fuelled the lie that the election had been stolen from the former president.

The next phase of the investigation will be more public-facing, starting with a series of public hearings in the coming months.