Washington — Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that the panel will release “all the evidence” it has collected over the course of its probe “within a month,” before Republicans take control of the House.
In an interview with “Face the Nation,” Lofgren stressed that the House select committee is conducting its own investigation and not sharing information with the Justice Department. But, with the committee set to dissolve at the end of this Congress, the California Democrat said the panel will make public all evidence it assembled along with a report of its findings.
“Within a month, the public will have everything that we’ve found, all the evidence. For good or ill,” Lofgren told “Face the Nation.” “And I think we’ve, as we’ve shown in our hearings, made a compelling presentation that the former president was at the center of the effort to overturn a duly elected election, assembled the mob, sent it over to Congress to try and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. It’s pretty shocking.”
During the course of nine public hearings held over the summer and into the fall, the select committee mapped out what it said was a multi-pronged campaign by former President Donald Trump and his allies to thwart the transfer of power and keep Trump in office for a second term. While the panel has completed its public hearings, investigators have continued to hear from witnesses, including the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail, Robert Engel, who was with the former president on Jan. 6.
The committee also issued a subpoena to Trump for testimony and documents, but the former president filed a lawsuit against the committee in an attempt to block it. The lawsuit likely closes the door to Trump complying with investigators’ demands before the panel ends and Republicans take control of the House in January.
While the committee did not subpoena former Vice President Mike Pence, members indicated they were interested in hearing from him. But Pence told “Face the Nation” that he is “closing the door” on appearing before the panel.
“The Congress has no right to my testimony,” Pence said. “We have a separation of powers under the Constitution of the United States, and I believe it sets a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”
In response to the refusals by Trump and Pence to cooperate with the committee’s investigation, Lofgren said members wish the two would’ve answered questions from investigators, and noted other presidents, including Gerald Ford and Theodore Roosevelt, have testified before Congress. Still, she acknowledged that time will likely run out before the committee could fight Trump in court to compel his compliance.
“It is almost Thanksgiving, and the committee turns into a pumpkin at the end of December. So we don’t have time to litigate this,” she said. “But I think they’ve cheated history. And they should have done otherwise.”
