Politico | January 6 riot committee leaders call Kevin McCarthy’s Trump comments ‘baseless’
- The committee chair and vice chair called out Minority Leader McCarthy’s ‘misinformation campaign’ in a joint statement
- Soon after the riot at the US Capitol, McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor that Donald Trump ‘bears responsibility’ for the attack
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kelly Hooper on politico.com on September 4, 2021.
Leaders of the select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection on Saturday denounced House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent comments about former US President Donald Trump’s involvement.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney called out McCarthy’s “misinformation campaign” in a joint statement, saying his claims that Trump had “no involvement” in the January 6 riot are “baseless.”
The statement ties McCarthy’s comments to an anonymous report that said the Department of Justice “concluded that Donald Trump did not cause, incite, or provoke the violence” on January 6. Members of the select committee looked into the origins of the report and discovered it had no merit, the statement says.
“We’ve received answers and briefings from the relevant entities, and it’s been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless,” Thompson and Cheney said in the statement.
The committee leaders also called out McCarthy for inconsistency with his comments on the Capitol insurrection.
Soon after the riot – in which Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building – McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack. But McCarthy has since walked back those comments, suggesting in separate instances that Trump did not provoke the riot and that the then-president responded sufficiently to the news of the attack.
“We also remind Minority Leader McCarthy of his statements following January 6, including his statement from the House Floor on January 13th – which are inconsistent with his recent comments,” the statement says.
Read Politico’s story.
