Aug. 2 (UPI) — Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Sunday said he expects the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to issue “a significant number of subpoenas.”
Kinzinger, R-Ill., told ABC News This Week that the committee hopes to conduct the process of investigating the insurrection led by supporters of former President Donald Trump “expeditiously,” adding that it is likely going to take “talking to a lot of people” along with thorough investigations.
“I would expect to see a significant number of subpoenas for a lot of people,” he said. “But I think the bigger thing is just what is the message that’s going to come out of this, is that the American people deserve the truth. They need the truth.”
When asked if the commission would issue subpoenas to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., or Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Kinzinger said he didn’t want to “get into naming names at this point,” but was in favor of seeking testimony from anyone who spoke to Trump on the day of the attack.
“I would support subpoenas to anybody that can shed light on that,” said Kinzinger. “If that’s the leader, that’s the leader. If it’s anybody that talked to the president that can provide us that information, I want to know what the president was doing every moment of that day.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appointed Kinzinger to join the committee late last month after rejecting two of McCarthy’s picks, including Jordan, to serve on the committee. The Republican leader then withdrew all five of his selections.
When asked what Congress would do in the event that McCarthy, Jordan or others reject the subpoena, Kinzinger said such an issue would likely be handled by the committee’s lawyers.
Kinzinger went on to say that the committee may not need to hear testimony from Trump directly unless he had “unique information” about the events surrounding the riot.
“It’s going to depend on where the facts lead,” he said. “We may not even have to talk to Donald Trump to get the information. There were tons of people around him. There were tons of people involved in the things that led up to Jan. 6.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, echoed Kinzinger’s assessment, saying “there were many communications” with Trump on the day of the riot.
“I believe that while the rioters are primarily responsible for what happened, there’s no doubt in my mind that President Trump helped instigate and motivate the rioters,” Collins told CNN’s State of the Union. “And that’s one reason I voted to impeach him.”
Collins, who was part of a failed effort to have an independent committee investigate the riots, criticized the select committee as “partisan” and said Pelosi should not have been able to select Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming to serve as the Republican members.
“I respect both of them, but I do not think it was right for the speaker to decide which Republicans should be on the committee,” she said.
