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Kevin McCarthy is 'on the least solid ground' to defy Jan. 6 subpoena: CNN legal analyst
May 13, 2022 7:59AM ET
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Photo by Saul Loeb for AFP)
On CNN Friday, chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained what the January 6 Committee is hoping to get out of the subpoenas to Republican members of Congress — and why Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has the least legal basis to resist.
"I want to ask you about the subpoenas," said anchor John Berman. "There is talk about will they testify, won't they testify. I think that obscures a larger issue, which is there's very little question that these Republican members, they know stuff about what happened that day. They were in the middle of a lot of things and they have stories to tell, starting with Kevin McCarthy."
"If you are serious about investigating how this insurrection happened, why the Capitol was invaded, you have to talk to these members of Congress, because based on what we already know, they were extremely at least knowledgeable, if not complicit, in what was going on," said Toobin.
Toobin then discussed how McCarthy is in a uniquely bad position to argue that he should not be subpoenaed.
"One of the most famous examples of that is Kevin McCarthy's conversation with Donald Trump about, you know — apparently telling him to call off the dogs, telling him to stop his supporters from engaging in the riot," he said. "What makes this an even more sort of outrageous objection on McCarthy's part is that he has talked about this conversation publicly, and that's what's known in the legal world as a waiver. If you talk about something publicly, you can't then say, well, I'm not going to talk to an investigative body. So legally, he may be on the least solid ground of all the congressmen who are objecting to these subpoenas."
"Congressmen Perry and Jordan, what would the committee want to know from them?" asked Berman.
"One of the issues in the investigation is what was the Justice Department doing and were they trying to be complicit in the effort to overturn the election," said Toobin. "Representative Perry was apparently involved in discussions about that. Jim Jordan ... also in touch with Donald Trump on the day of the riot, what was said, obviously very important to know what Trump was saying, Jordan knows."
"And, again, Congressman Biggs and Brooks," Berman followed up.
"Same thing," said Toobin. "With Biggs, actually — what's particularly interesting about Biggs is that he was in talking to some of the people who later were involved in the riot, what was said, what were part of the plans, Mo Brooks spoke at the rally, in touch with a lot of the people whose behavior is of interest to the January 6th Committee. All of this — if they were not members of Congress, they would have been talked to already. The question now is do they have a legal ground on which to object and does the committee have enough time to litigate the subpoenas."
Watch below or at this link.
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