Jan. 6 committee weighs interviewing Pence, Trump

(Image credit: Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

published 9 May 2022

With a series of hearings on the horizon, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is mulling whether to call former President Donald Trump and/or former Vice President Mike Pence, neither of whom has spoken to the panel, The Associated Press reports.

Of course, there are reasons to speak with at least one or both former leaders. For starters, "[t]he committee wants to be as thorough as possible, and critics are sure to pounce if they don't even try," writes AP. But some committee members believe they have what they need without either man.

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That said, it's unclear whether or to what extent each would even cooperate with the committee; Trump "would certainly be a hostile witness," AP posits. Not to mention that "calling a former president or vice president to testify in a congressional investigation is a rare, if not unprecedented, move that could face major legal hurdles and backfire politically," AP writes. Read more at The Associated Press.

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.

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