Rep. Greg Pence
WASHINGTON — Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, has voted against holding former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for their refusal to comply with subpoenas rendered by the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The two men on Wednesday became the latest members of former 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 Associated Press reported.
The near-party-line 220-203 vote will send the criminal referrals for Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. The entire Indiana congressional delegation voted against holding Navarro and Scavino in contempt.
The contempt action followed hours of raw debate on the House floor as Republicans stood by Trump and charged that Democrats were trying to politicize the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
The committee is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob smashed into the building, brutally beat police officers and chanted that they wanted to hang former Vice President Mike Pence, a Columbus native, in an effort to upend the election of now-President Joe Biden, according to wire reports.
On Wednesday, House Republican 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.
While pursuing contempt charges may not yield any new information for the Jan. 6 committee — any prosecutions could drag for months or years — the vote Wednesday was the latest attempt to show that witnesses will suffer consequences if they don’t cooperate or at least appear for questioning.
“This vote will reveal to us who is willing to show tolerance for the intolerable,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland 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 just a handful of individuals who have rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information, according to the AP. The panel has interviewed more than 800 witnesses so far.
In the last week alone, 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 Kushner’s testimony last Thursday was helpful. Ivanka Trump, who was with her father in the White House on Jan. 6, was questioned for eight hours Tuesday as congressional investigators tried to piece together her father’s failed effort to delay the certification of the 2020 election results.
Rep. Greg Pence, for his part, has repeatedly opposed holding former Trump administration officials in contempt for not cooperating with the investigation into the attack. Pence, a Republican who is seeking a third term in Congress, also opposed the formation of the committee.
In December, Pence voted against holding former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress after he stopped cooperating with the Jan. 6 Committee.
In October, Pence was the lone member of the House to not cast a vote on a resolution to hold Steve Bannon, a longtime ally and aid to Trump, in contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from a committee investigating the insurrection.
However, Hannah Osantowski, a spokeswoman for Pence, said at the time that the congressman “had a family medical emergency that he had to attend to, but he would have voted no.” Bannon was later indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress.
In May, Pence voted against the creation of the Jan. 6 committee. At the time, Pence evoked the chants of hanging his brother in a comment to The Washington Post, characterizing the bipartisan commission as the “political execution” of Trump.
“Hanging Judge Nancy Pelosi is hellbent on pushing her version of partisan justice complete with a hand-picked jury that will carry out her pre-determined political execution of Donald Trump before law enforcement officials have completed their investigation,” Pence told The Washington Post before the vote.
Pence also voted against impeaching Trump on a charge that the former president incited the deadly insurrection against the Capitol while lawmakers were gathered to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Today I voted against impeaching President Donald Trump,” Pence said in a statement at the time. “The president has made it clear he will support a peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 20th to President-elect Joe Biden. It is time to move on, heal and put our focus into where it truly helps the American people: recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and restoring our economy.”
Federal agents have arrested hundreds of people across the United States believed to have joined in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, including Edinburgh resident and heavy metal musician Jon Schaffer, who later pleaded guilty to breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, armed with bear repellent. He also pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
