House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that anyone failing to cooperate with Congress’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should be held in criminal contempt — including sitting lawmakers.
“In my opinion, that action should not be excluded when members themselves have information that the committee needs,” Hoyer told reporters on a press call. “I will certainly support that, I will bring that to the floor, and I would hope that the House would support it.”
“At the very essence of the Congress’s responsibility to conduct oversight,” he added, “is the ability to compel testimony from those who have relevant information.”
The comments arrive as the bipartisan select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is casting a wide and growing net in hopes of moving soon to the public phase of the probe, and then producing a final report sometime over the summer.
The panel has already interviewed more than 300 people, a vast majority of them voluntarily, with insights into the violent siege. But several sitting lawmakers with close ties to former President Trump, including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.), have refused to hand over communications, or be interviewed, at the request of the congressional investigators.
Jordan — who participated in strategy sessions with White House officials leading up to Jan. 6, and spoke directly with Trump that day — had initially said he had “nothing to hide.” On Sunday, however, he issued a lengthy statement hammering the investigation as a partisan witch hunt that would set a “dangerous precedent for future Congresses.”
“Your attempt to pry into the deliberative process of informing a member about legislative matters before the House is an outrageous abuse of the select committee’s authority,” Jordan wrote.
The panel has not issued subpoenas to either Jordan or Perry, asking only that they provide the information on their own. But a spokesperson for the select committee said the saga is hardly over.
Responding to Jordan on Monday, a committee spokesperson said “it now appears that the Trump team has persuaded him to try to hide the facts and circumstances of January 6th,” adding it would “consider appropriate next steps.”
And Hoyer on Tuesday also accused the Republicans of bowing to Trump’s wishes, while promoting the notion of criminal contempt.
“Trump, their leader, doesn’t honor judicial process in so many different ways, [so] it’s not surprising that they don’t either,” Hoyer said. “But yes, … I would support compelling members to testify before the committee if they have relevant information to offer.”
The House has already voted to hold two prominent former members of Trump’s team, Stephen Bannon and Mark Meadows, in contempt for their refusal to provide information requested, under subpoena, by the investigative committee. The Justice Department is pursuing the charges against Bannon, but has made no announcements regarding the Meadows referral.
Hoyer said he hopes that changes in the near future.