The leaders of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 slammed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for “baseless” comments he made about Donald Trump’s involvement in the deadly insurrection.
In an interview with a local NBC affiliate KGET-TV on Thursday, McCarthy suggested that Trump had nothing to do with the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“The FBI has investigated this. The senate had bipartisan committees. You know what they found? That there was no involvement,” McCarthy said.
In a joint statement on Saturday Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called out McCarthy’s “misinformation campaign”, saying his claims that Trump had “no involvement” in the Jan. 6 riot are “baseless,” according to Politico.
Thompson and Cheney said McCarthy came to that conclusion after reading an anonymous report claiming that the DOJ “concluded that Donald Trump did not cause, incite, or provoke the violence on January 6th.”
The joint statement said “the committee queried the Executive Branch agencies and congressional committees involved in the investigation” after the anonymous report was published and “received answers and briefings from the relevant entities, and it’s been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless.”
The leaders also called out McCarthy for “inconsistent” comments he made since the attack on Jan. 6.
McCarthy blamed Trump shortly after the riot saying he “bears responsibility” for the attack. He has since walked back those comments and suggested that Trump has nothing to do with his supporters storming the Capitol, believing a lie fed to them by Trump about the election being stolen.
“We also remind Minority Leader McCarthy of his statements following January 6th, including his statement from the House Floor on January 13th—which are inconsistent with his recent comments,” the committee leaders said.