(WASHINGTON) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection sent a letter to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Thursday seeking information and records related to what it said were his conversations and communications with former President Donald Trump’s team before and after the attack on the Capitol.
In its letter, the committee said it had obtained emails from Gingrich, an influential Republican, to Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller offering talking points and direction for television ads about election fraud in December of 2020.
The panel specifically said those communications were sent after Trump’s voter fraud allegations “were shown to be false.”
“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger through new verifiable information the American people have never seen before[.] . . . If we inform the American people in a way they find convincing and it arouses their anger[,] they will then bring pressure on legislators and governors,” Gingrich wrote in an email, according to the panel.
In its letter, the committee said Gingrich repeatedly emailed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before and after the attack with questions about coordination of a push to send fake electors to the Electoral College and letters from state legislators regarding the electors — including after the mob was cleared from the Capitol.
“On the evening of January 6th, you continued to push efforts to overturn the election results. You emailed Mr. Meadows at 10:42 p.m., after the Capitol had been cleared of rioters and members of Congress had returned to finish certifying the election results, and asked, ‘[a]re there letters from state legislators about decertifying electors[?]"” the committee wrote.
“Accordingly, you appear to have been involved with President Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of the election results, even after the attack on the Capitol.”
The committee requested a voluntary interview with Gingrich the week of Sept. 19.
“A full and accurate accounting of what happened on January 6th is critical to the Select Committee’s legislative recommendations. And the American people deserve to understand the relevant details of what led to the attack,” the panel wrote.
The committee has previously sought information from aides to Gingrich who did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
In December 2020, the committee said, Gingrich emailed senior Trump aides urging the campaign to run national television ads promoting the conspiracy theory that Georgia election workers smuggled suitcases full of ballots into State Farm Arena.
Senior Justice Department officials at the time, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, told the committee and said publicly that they investigated this and other claims of election fraud, and found no merit to them.
“We looked at the tape, we interviewed the witnesses,” former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the committee about his conversation with former President Trump about the claims. “I said, ‘No sir, there is no suitcase. You can watch the video over and over. There is no suitcase."”
The letter to Gingrich, a prominent Trump ally, is a reminder of the House committee’s work while much of the national attention is on the unprecedented FBI raid on Trump’s Florida residence as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
The panel is expected to resume public hearings at some point this month after already publicly interviewing several former Trump administration officials and rioters.
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