Jan. 6 Panel Refers Four Republicans to Ethics Committee

(L-R) Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the select committee investigating the events on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, speaks as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice-chair of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) listen during a committee meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 1, 2021. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The January 6 committee referred four Republican lawmakers to the House Ethics Committee on Dec. 19 for defying subpoenas earlier this year.

The referrals names House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)

During the same session, the committee recommended criminal charges against former President Donald Trump related to the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The House Ethics Committee subpoenaed Reps. McCarthy, Jordan, Perry, and Biggs to testify earlier this year. None complied.

Biggs responded to the ethics committee’s referral on Twitter, saying the committee wants lawmakers’ testimony “to have the ability to edit and misconstrue our statements to further their own false narratives, as they did with so many witnesses.”

Jay Ostrich, the spokesperson for Perry, said in an email statement to The Epoch Times, “More games from a petulant and soon-to-be defunct kangaroo court desperate for revenge and struggling to get out from under the weight of its own irrelevancy.”

“Congressman Perry is pressing on with his commitment to help his constituents, who, once again—unlike several members of this illegitimate entity—overwhelmingly sent him back to Washington to fix what President Biden and his enablers have broken,” Ostrich continued.

The Epoch Times contacted Jordan and McCarthy for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

Russell Dye, the spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan, told the Daily Caller that the charges were “just another partisan and political stunt made by a Select Committee that knowingly altered evidence, blocked minority representation on a Committee for the first time in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives, and failed to response to Mr. Jordan’s numerous letters and concerns surrounding the politicization and legitimacy of the Committee’s work.”

Raskin told reporters that the reason the recommended charges only named four members of Congress was because there was abundant evidence that they had engaged in crimes related to Jan. 6, 2021.

The Jan. 6 committee did not invoke any seditious conspiracy charges, Raskin told the media; this charge was predominantly for Oath Keepers and Proud boys.

The Jan. 6 Committee has been criticized from its launch for its partisanship and anti-Trump animus. The Democrat-led committee of nine representatives contains only two GOP representatives, both outspoken critics of Trump who had voted to impeach the former president in January 2021 and were picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly described the nature of the committee’s referrals of the Republican lawmakers. The Epoch Times regrets the error.