The House Jan. 6 committee is “aware” of a call connecting the White House with a rioter at the Capitol, but members were mum on just what it entailed and who was involved when pressed about the mysterious contact on Sunday.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) briefly commented on the call disclosed by former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who was a senior technical adviser to the panel before leaving in April, without getting into any detail. His interview took place before the Jan. 6 committee is expected to hold its final public hearing on Wednesday.
“I can’t say anything specific about that particular call, but we are aware of it,” Raskin told Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd when asked if he knew who it was inside the White House from which the call originated.
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD CONNECTED TO CAPITOL RIOTER: FORMER JAN. 6 PANEL ADVISER
“We are aware of lots of contacts between the people in the White House and different people that were involved obviously in the coup attempt and the insurrection. And that’s really what all of our hearings have been about,” he added. “You know, we’ve had more than 20 hours, explaining that this was an organized, coordinated attempt to subvert the electoral process and to substitute the will of a minority for the will of the majority that was expressed, where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by more than seven million votes and 306-232 in the Electoral College.”
Raskin also said he is hopeful the Jan. 6 committee will hold yet another hearing, beyond the one scheduled for Wednesday, “that lays out all of our legislative recommendations about how to prevent coups, insurrections, political violence, and electoral sabotage in the future, because this is a clear and present danger that’s continuing up right to this day.”
Riggleman talked about the call during a recent interview with 60 Minutes. “I only know one end of that call. I don’t know the White House end, which I believe is more important,” he said. Riggleman, who, according to his book The Breach, pushed the committee to take more aggressive steps to discover more information about that call, has reportedly irked staffers and Jan. 6 committee members with his public interviews detailing his work for the panel.
“In his role on the Select Committee staff, Mr. Riggleman had limited knowledge of the committee’s investigation. He departed from the staff in April prior to our hearings and much of our most important investigative work. … Since his departure, the Committee has run down all the leads … that arose from his work,” a spokesperson for the committee told the CBS program.
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Another member of the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), was similarly asked on Sunday whether he views this call as a major part of the investigation. “You know, I can’t comment on the particulars,” Schiff said on CNN’s State of the Union. “I can say that each of the issues that Mr. Riggleman raised during the period he was with committee, which ended quite some time ago, we looked into. And one of the things I think that has given our committee credibility is, we have been very careful about what we say, not to overstate matters, not to understate matters.”
Moderator Jake Tapper noted that CNN’s reporting shows the call lasted only nine seconds and was not placed by a White House switchboard but rather was a landline call from the White House to a cellphone registered to a rioter.
