President Donald Trump's appointee in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development repeatedly declined in a closed-door hearing to answer House Democrats' questions about whether he was inside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack, The Bulwark reported Thursday.
The question came during a contentious interrogation that also included Pete Marocco's role in dismantling the foreign aid system — during which he also complained that USAID had advanced LGBTQ issues, and parroted Russian talking points that the agency funded democracy protests in eastern European countries that ousted pro-Russian leaders.
"The most tense exchange, according to two people familiar with it, was when Democrats pressed Marocco on whether he had entered the Capitol during the riots on January 6th," wrote Joe Perticone. "Marocco was allegedly photographed inside the building and has never explicitly denied being there (though he's never been charged with any crimes, either). He did not directly answer questions about his whereabouts that day, saying he had only come to discuss the issue of USAID."
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On his first day in office, Trump issued sweeping, blanket pardons for almost everyone charged with crimes for storming the Capitol to try to disrupt the electoral certification of former President Joe Biden. The Justice Department has since tried to argue the pardons even clear rioters of some crimes not directly related to the attack, such as illegal gun possession.
Marocco has been a lightning rod for criticism as he has overseen the Trump administration's near-total shutdown of USAID, which has been repeatedly smacked down by federal courts even as Marocco has sought to keep the funds frozen anyway.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that the Trump administration can't withhold USAID payments on work that has already been done by federal contractors, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett siding with liberal justices.
