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.
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."
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.
-
Political cartoons for January 20Cartoons Tuesday's political cartoons include authoritarian cosplay, puffins on parade, and melting public support for ICE
-
Cows can use tools, scientists reportSpeed Read The discovery builds on Jane Goodall’s research from the 1960s
-
Indiana beats Miami for college football titleSpeed Read The victory completed Indiana’s unbeaten season
-
The billionaires’ wealth tax: a catastrophe for California?Talking Point Peter Thiel and Larry Page preparing to change state residency
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
Bari Weiss’ ‘60 Minutes’ scandal is about more than one reportIN THE SPOTLIGHT By blocking an approved segment on a controversial prison holding US deportees in El Salvador, the editor-in-chief of CBS News has become the main story
-
Will the new year bring a new shutdown?Today’s Big Question A January deadline could bring the pain all over again
-
CBS pulls ‘60 Minutes’ report on Trump deporteesSpeed Read An investigation into the deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison was scrapped
-
Trump administration posts sliver of Epstein filesSpeed Read Many of the Justice Department documents were heavily redacted, though new photos of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton emerged
-
Is Trump deliberately redacting Epstein files to shield himself?Today’s Big Question Removal of image from publicly released documents prompts accusations of political interference by justice department
