PANEL WANTS TO TALK TO 3 LAWMAKERS
Evidence hints some sought pardons from Trump after Jan. 6
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol sent letters Monday seeking interviews with three Republican members of Congress, and the panel said it had gathered evidence that some House Republicans sought presidential pardons in the aftermath of the violence that engulfed the Capitol.
The committee is requesting interviews with Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, former leader of the House Freedom Caucus; Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has said former President Donald Trump has continued to seek reinstatement to office; and Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, Trump’s former White House doctor.
In a letter to Biggs, the committee’s leaders wrote that they wanted to question him about evidence they had obtained about efforts by certain House Republicans to seek a presidential pardon after Jan. 6 in connection with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Your name was identified as a potential participant in that effort,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., leaders of the committee, wrote to Biggs. “We would like to understand all the details of the request for a pardon, more specific reasons why a pardon was sought and the scope of the proposed pardon.”
The committee also said it wanted to interview Biggs
about a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting he attended at the White House with several other members of the Freedom Caucus. There, the discussion included a plan in which former Vice President Mike Pence would refuse to count certain states’ certified electoral votes on Jan. 6.
Investigators said they also had evidence about Biggs’ efforts to persuade state legislators to join Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election.
The panel also wants to question Biggs about Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer
of so-called Stop the Steal rallies with ties to farright members of Congress who sought to invalidate the 2020 election results. Alexander has said he, along with Biggs, Brooks and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., set the events of Jan. 6 in motion.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video posted online. He added that even if they couldn’t lobby the lawmakers, “we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in
that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”
The committee described Alexander as “an early and aggressive proponent of the Stop the Steal movement who called for violence before Jan. 6.”
“We would like to understand precisely what you knew before the violence on Jan. 6 about the purposes, planning and expectations for the march on the Capitol,” Thompson and Cheney wrote to Biggs.
Brooks, who wore body armor onstage that day as he told the crowd to “start
taking down names and kicking ass,” and Biggs, who provided a video message for Alexander to play at a Dec. 19 rally, have denied coordinating event planning with Alexander.
The panel wants to question Brooks about statements he made in March claiming that Trump had asked him in the months since the election to illegally “rescind” the results, remove President Joe Biden and force a special election.
Brooks said Trump had made the request of him on multiple occasions since
Sept. 1, 2021. He said that the former president did not specify exactly how Congress could reinstall him, and that Brooks repeatedly told him it was impossible.
Investigators said they had questions for Jackson, the former White House doctor who is now a member of Congress, about why he was mentioned in encrypted messages from the Oath Keepers, a militia group, some of whose members have been charged criminally in connection with the attack. In the messages, the militia members appear to have Jackson’s cellphone and say he is “on the move” and “needs protection” as the violence was under way.
Members of the Oath Keepers, including its leader, Stewart Rhodes, exchanged encrypted messages asking members of the organization to provide Jackson personally with security assistance, suggesting he has “critical data to protect,” according to federal prosecutors.
“Why would these individuals have an interest in your specific location? Why would they believe you ‘have critical data to protect’?” Thompson and Cheney wrote to Jackson. “Why would they direct their members to protect your personal safety? With whom did you speak by cellphone that day?”
Jackson denied being in contact with the members of the Oath Keepers.
In statements, Biggs and Jackson both called the committee “illegitimate” and said they would not agree to an interview. Brooks did not respond to a request for comment.