Kinzinger ‘frustrated’ by DOJ’s pace handling Jan. 6

Rep. Adam Kinzinger says he’s “frustrated” by the pace of indictments coming from the Justice Department related to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

“I’m frustrated at the speed,” the Illinois Republican, one of two GOP lawmakers on the House select committee investigating last year’s attack, told Stephen Colbert during a Wednesday appearance on CBS’s “The Late Show.”

“I know they have a job to do,” Kinzinger said of the department led by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Critics have accused the Justice Department of dragging its feet in acting on the House’s criminal referrals of Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, the White House chief of staff and social media director, respectively, under former President Trump. The Justice Department declined to charge Meadows and Scavino with contempt of Congress.

“I am frustrated that for instance, Mark Meadows, and Dan Scavino have refused to come in and talk to Congress,” Kinzinger said.

The Jan. 6 committee, he said, has “the power of subpoena, similar to what a court has.”

“And the Justice Department has failed to indict them for that. And so all it does is send a message you just have to resist the select committee and you may be able to resist all penalties,” Kinzinger told Colbert.

“That’s been a frustration,” he said.

“We have these two investigations — and again, I don’t know what Justice is doing or not doing — but assuming they’re investigating, we have our investigation that’s very public. This all kind of feeds together,” Kinzinger said during his late-night TV interview.

“Even though we are not the committee that goes out and indicts people criminally, we can bring forward important information,” Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in Jan. 6, said of the Jan. 6 committee’s work. “I think the case that we’re making right now, is that the president knew that he had lost the election, and he attempted to over overcome the will of the American people.”

“We never want to get in a position where we’re just prosecuting last administrations — that’s another thing you see in failed democracies,” Kinzinger, who announced last year that he wouldn’t seek reelection, said.

“But when you try to overthrow the will of the people, and you try a coup in the United States government, you have to pay for that, period.”