As the January 6 House Select Committee reveals information about Republican lawmakers’ involvement in the attempted coup during the hearings on their investigation this month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has said that the public deserves to know which members of Congress have sought pardons for their involvement in the Capitol attack.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez said that her Republican colleagues should divulge whether or not they’ve requested a presidential pardon for their involvement in planning or executing the attack.
“When you don’t know which of your colleagues were part of a potential conspiracy, then we need to find out” whether they were, Ocasio-Cortez said, pointing to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colorado) tweets about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) whereabouts during the attack and Boebert’s “provocative” statement that “[t]oday is 1776.”
“Frankly, from a lot of behavior that we have seen both in committee [and] inside the workings of the House, I believe that every member of Congress should be able to answer this question,” Ocasio-Cortez went on, adding that she is “more than willing to offer that [I] did not seek a pardon from the White House either before or after January 6 or, frankly, at any point in time. And I believe that it’s a very simple question.”
The progressive lawmaker reiterated the point on Monday, calling for her colleagues to reveal whether or not they have ever sought a pardon while in office. “[E]very person in this country deserves to know if their elected official believed enough that they were committing a crime to seek one,” she said on Twitter. “Kind of important info.”
Last week, the January 6 committee revealed that Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) is one of “multiple” Republicans who asked for a pardon from President Donald Trump for their role in the attack.
Documents and testimonies have shown that Perry connected Trump with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer who worked with Trump’s administration to devise a plan to oust then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who refused Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Perry’s office has denied the allegation that the representative sought a pardon.
Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) told ABC on Sunday that the committee “will show the evidence that we have that members of Congress were seeking pardons” in weeks to come. “To me, I think that is some of the most compelling evidence of a consciousness of guilt,” Schiff said.
On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at Boebert, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), directly inquiring if they were among those who asked Trump for a preemptive pardon for the attack. According to Rolling Stone, January 6 planners have named Boebert and Greene as lawmakers who helped plan the rally that would turn violent after Trump’s speech, among others. A former aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has also named Boebert, Gaetz and Greene as part of a group of Congress members who discussed overturning the election with the White House.
So far, at least 865 people have faced charges related to the January 6 attack, including state politicians and far right militia leaders.