Capitol Riot Committee Chairman: I Will ‘Absolutely’ Investigate Trump’s Role in Chaos
Specifically, Bennie Thompson wants to know who Trump spoke to and what he said on Jan. 6.

Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
The man tasked with leading the House select committee to investigate the Capitol insurrection has set his sights firmly on Donald Trump. In an interview with The Guardian, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) was asked if he’s prepared to depose the ex-president and his top allies in congress. “Absolutely... Nothing is off limits,” he said. Specifically, Thompson wants to know what Trump said when he spoke to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the MAGA mob stormed the Capitol. “There will not be a reluctance on the part of the committee to pursue it,” Thompson said of the Trump call. “The committee will want to know if there is a record of what was said.” He went on to say that anyone who spoke to Trump on Jan. 6 should expect to become the subject of his investigation, saying: “If somebody spoke to the president on Jan. 6, I think it would be important for our committee to know what was said. I can’t imagine you talk about anything else to the president on Jan. 6.”
Thompson had been the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Democratic members of Congress against former President Trump accusing him, Rudy Giuliani, and the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys of conspiring to incite the Jan. 6 riot. On Tuesday, Thompson announced he would withdraw from the suit in order to avoid a conflict of interest with his role as chairman of the Jan. 6 commission.
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