Jan. 6 committee seeks to interview Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday requested an interview with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

McCarthy is the third sitting representative the panel has asked to interview after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.).

"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," committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a six-page 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 asserted that during a Jan. 11, 2021 conference call with other lawmakers, "you [McCarthy] stated that President Trump had admitted ‘some degree of responsibility’ for January 6th in his one-on-one conversations with you."

Rep. Jamie Herrera Butler (R-Wash.) reportedly issued a statement to the committee, which Thompson relayed in his letter: "When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol. McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.'"

The committee requested to meet with McCarthy the first week of February to discuss his conversations with former President Donald Trump before, during and after Jan. 6.