Former White House advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino were on Wednesday held in contempt of US Congress for their month-long refusal to comply with subpoenas rendered by the House committee’s investigation into last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The men are the latest members of former US president Donald Trump’s inner circle to face legal jeopardy as the select committee continues its more than nine-month-long probe into the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years.
The near-party-line 220-203 vote would send the criminal referrals for Navarro and Scavino to the US Department of Justice for possible prosecution.
Photo: Reuters
The contempt action followed hours of raw debate on the floor of the US House of Representatives, as Republicans stood by Trump and charged that Democrats were trying to politicize the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
US House of Representatives Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the Jan. 6 committee of “criminalizing dissent,” defended Scavino as a “good man” and lobbed harsh criticism at members of the committee, some by name.
“Let’s be honest, this is a political show trial,” McCarthy said.
US Representative Jamie Raskin, one of the nine members of the panel, said that the committee has two Republicans, including Liz Cheney.
He added that the purpose of the floor vote was to make clear that “open contempt and mockery for this process, and for the rule of law” would not be allowed by the chamber.
“I mean, it is just amazing that they think they can get away with this,” the three-term lawmaker told reporters about Scavino and Navarro as the debate raged on Wednesday.
Cheney and US Representative Adam Kinzinger, who is also on the select committee, were the only Republicans who voted in favor of the contempt charges.
While pursuing contempt charges might not yield any new information for the committee — any prosecutions could drag for months or years — the vote Wednesday was the latest attempt to show that witnesses would face consequences if they do not cooperate or at least appear for questioning.
It is all part of an effort to claw back legislative authority that eroded during the Trump era when congressional subpoenas were often flouted and ignored.
“This vote will reveal to us who is willing to show tolerance for the intolerable,” US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on the floor, directing his comments to Republicans across the aisle.
Raskin and other Democrats made their case that Scavino and Navarro are among a handful of people who have rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information. The panel has interviewed more than 800 witnesses so far.
In the past week, the committee scored two of those interviews from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Their virtual testimonies are the closest lawmakers have gotten to the former president.
Members of the panel said that Kushner’s testimony on Thursday last week was helpful. Ivanka Trump, who was with her father in the White House on Jan. 6, was questioned for eight hours on Tuesday as congressional investigators tried to piece together her father’s failed effort to delay the certification of the 2020 election results.
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