House Democrat No. 3 Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) has said that former President Donald Trump may have to testify before a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 incident.
“Oh, if it comes to that, they should go wherever the facts lead. They may be able to get what they want and need without him testifying,” Clyburn said during a CNN interview on July 4.
“I would not want to see a former president testifying in such a situation as this. But if that’s what it takes in order to get to the bottom of this, because this is more than any one person. This is this country.”
The House last week voted to create a select committee to look into the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. All Democrats voted to create the committee, while just two Republicans joined them.
Earlier, Democrats and a handful of House Republicans sought to create a panel they described as bipartisan to investigate the incident. However, it was blocked by Senate Republicans, who decried it as a partisan exercise.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week named several lawmakers to the committee, including House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).
After Cheney accepted the offer to serve on the panel, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested she could lose her committee assignments.
“I’m not threatening anybody with committee assignments,” McCarthy said during the conference. “It was shocking to me that—if a person is Republican, they get their committee assignments from the Republican conference. For somebody to accept committee assignments from Speaker Pelosi—that’s unprecedented.”
When she was named to the committee, Cheney released a statement that she’s “honored to have been named to serve” and said it serves lawmakers’ “oath to the Constitution, our commitment to the rule of law, and the preservation of the peaceful transfer of power must always be above partisan politics.”
Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) were the two Republicans to vote in favor of the panel. Both are frequent critics of Trump.
Trump was impeached for a second time earlier this year for allegedly inciting the breach. He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.
Democrats, Trump said on July 3, are trying to politically wound him because he’s “called them out on their lies, exposed their incompetence, and taken away their power.”
The Epoch Times has contacted Trump’s office for comment.
