The Jan. 6 committee “in the next week or two” will take next steps on its decision on issuing subpoenas to compel Republican lawmakers to testify about Donald Trump and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, committee member Adam Kinzinger (R-Mich.) said Sunday on Face the Nation.
“If that takes a subpoena, it takes a subpoena,” he added. The committee is planning for public hearings in June that Kinzinger said will “lay the whole story out in front of the American people … because ultimately, they have to be the judge.” One potential witness is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Host Margaret Brennan asked Kinzinger about his thoughts on Greene’s alleged Jan. 2021 text to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows where the congresswoman mentioned (and misspelled) martial law as an option to halt Biden’s inauguration after his election was certified by Congress.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law,” Greene texted Meadows on January 17, 2021. In a court filing Thursday, Greene’s lawyers claimed she has “no recollection” of sending the text and are now trying to paint her as a “victim” of the Jan. 6 attack rather than an instigator.
Greene testified Friday at a hearing in a case brought by activists claiming she is ineligible to run for reelection because they allege she participated in the insurrection. In her testimony, she responded, “I don’t recall,” when asked which GOP members wanted Trump to declare martial law.
“I’d love to ask her a few questions,” Kinzinger said of Greene. “We know some things. I won’t confirm or deny the text messages, of course. But let me just say this for Marjorie Taylor Greene to say she’s a victim, it’s amazing how folks like her attack everybody for being a victim.”
Kinzinger went on to mention when Greene confronted Parkland shooting survivor and anti-gun activist David Hogg and his family in the streets of D.C., as well as the time she yelled into the mail slot in the door to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) congressional office, saying, “Stop being a baby… Get rid of your diaper!”
“We hear you in there… Can you come out and play?” a man accompanying Greene said into the slot.
“I mean, she assaulted, I think, a survivor’s family from a school shooting at some point in D.C.,” Kinzinger said. “She stood outside a congresswoman’s office and yelled at her through a mail slot and said she was too scared to come out and confront her. And then when Marjorie Taylor Greene is confronted, she’s all of a sudden a victim and a poor, helpless congresswoman that’s just trying to do her job. It’s insane. We want the information. Look, history is not going to judge her or people like her that are buying the big lie well. I firmly believe that.”
Kinzinger also told Brennan that he “would love” for former Vice President Mike Pence to testify “voluntarily.” But, he said, “If he doesn’t, then we’ll look at the options we have available to us if there’s information we don’t already have.”
