Washington — Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a member of the House committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that the panel “fully” expects Rudy Giuliani to comply with its subpoena for testimony.
“Our expectation is he is going to cooperate because that’s the law, that’s the requirement, same as if somebody [is] subpoenaed to court,” Kinzinger said in an interview with “Face the Nation,” adding “we fully expect that in accordance with the law, we’ll hear from Rudy.”
Giuliani and three others — conservative lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, and former Trump White House aide Boris Epshteyn — pushed unsupported theories the 2020 election was rife with fraud and appeared together for a November 19, 2020, press conference, during which they claimed Mr. Trump won in a “landslide.”
The committee issued its subpoena to Giuliani, Ellis, Powell and Epshteyn last month. The panel asked them to turn over documents by February 1 and testify February 8.
Kinzinger said there could be some changes in the date Giuliani appears before the committee for a deposition, but House investigators expect him to cooperate.
“Regardless of when we hear from Rudy or how long that interview is, we’re getting a lot of information and we’re looking forward to wrapping this up at some point when that is right, showing it to the American people, but not rushing it, not hurrying this,” he said. “We want everybody to have the full story.”
In the course of its probe, the January 6 committee has interviewed more than 475 witnesses and received over 60,000 pages of records, according to an aide to the panel. Kinzinger said he expects the committee will begin public hearings in the spring or summer.
“We will want to be able to take this information and present it to the American people, not just in a report which is going to be essential, but in people, in faces and in stories,” the Illinois Republican said.
Kinzinger and Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming are the only two Republicans serving on the January 6 panel, and both were censured by the Republican National Committee earlier this month for their participation. The resolution punishing the pair declared the committee’s investigation “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” a characterization of the events of January 6 that was rebuked by many Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Kinzinger said McConnell’s statement, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence’s rejection of Trump’s claim he could have rejected state electoral votes, was “important,” but said all Republicans “have to take definitive lines.”
“This is a moment where every Republican — I don’t care if you’re running for city council all the way up to Congress, Senate, etc. — every Republican has to be clear and forceful on the record: Do they think January 6th was legitimate political discourse?” he said. “Don’t let them avoid it. Don’t let them hem haw and don’t let them transition to some other subject they’d rather talk about. This is an answer every one of them have to give, and then we can move on once they’re clear and on the record. But this is definitive to our democracy. How do you feel? Was it legitimate?”
