Rep. Jamie Raskin: Jan. 6 committee 'aware of' call from White House to rioter


Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said during Sunday's Meet the Press that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is "aware of" a call being made that day between the White House switchboard and one of the rioters.
He can't "say anything specific about that particular call," Raskin continued, but the panel knows about it and "lots of contacts between the people in the White House and different people that were involved, obviously, in the coup attempt and the insurrection." Raskin said it's up to the Jan. 6 committee to "put everything into a comprehensive portrait and narrative timeline of what took place."
News of the White House switchboard connecting to the phone of a rioter was first revealed by former Republican lawmaker Denver Riggleman during a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night. Riggleman had been a Jan. 6 committee staffer, and told 60 Minutes he knows about "one end" of the call, and not the "White House end," but didn't say which rioter was on the line.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee told NBC News Riggleman has "limited knowledge" of the panel's probe, as he left his position 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 and digested and analyzed all the information that arose from his work."
The Jan. 6 committee is holding its next public hearing on Wednesday, its first since July. Raskin said the plan is for the panel to "fill in those details that have come to the attention of the committee over the last five or six weeks." He added that he's "hopeful, speaking just as one member, that we will have a hearing 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 right up to this day."
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Democrats: How to rebuild a damaged brand
Feature Trump's approval rating is sinking, but so is the Democratic brand
-
Unraveling autism
Feature RFK Jr. has vowed to find the root cause of the 'autism epidemic' in months. Scientists have doubts.
-
'Two dolls': Can Trump sell Americans on austerity?
Feature Trump's tariffs may be threatening holiday shelves but they've handed Democrats a 'huge gift'
-
Qatar luxury jet gift clouds Trump trip to Mideast
speed read Qatar is said to be presenting Trump with a $400 million plane, which would be among the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the US government
-
Trump taps Fox News' Pirro for DC attorney post
speed read The president has named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, replacing acting US Attorney Ed Martin
-
Trump, UK's Starmer outline first post-tariff deal
speed read President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer struck a 'historic' agreement to eliminate some of the former's imposed tariffs
-
Fed leaves rates unchanged as Powell warns on tariffs
speed read The Federal Reserve says the risks of higher inflation and unemployment are increasing under Trump's tariffs
-
Denmark to grill US envoy on Greenland spying report
speed read The Trump administration ramped up spying on Greenland, says reporting by The Wall Street Journal
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'