The House Jan. 6 Committee is seeking information from Newt Gingrich after the panel says it obtained information showing the former Republican House speaker worked with senior advisers to spread disinformation.
Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat, said Thursday in a letter to Mr. Gingrich that the information showed Mr. Gingrich had helped former President Donald Trump on television advertisements that “repeated and relied upon false claims about fraud in the 2020 election.”
Mr. Thompson cited emails between the former lawmaker and White House aides Jared Kushner and Jason Miller in which Mr. Gingrich provided “detailed input” including line edits to scripts used in the television spots that aired in the days leading up to Dec. 14, 2020, when state electors met to cast their ballots.
“These efforts attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the election after voting had already taken place,” Mr. Thompson wrote. “They encouraged members of the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the results of the election.”
Mr. Thompson said Mr. Gingrich “specifically pushed for national advertisements” that would highlight claims that Georgia election officials replaced ballots with fraudulent ballots that were brought into the counting facility in suitcases.
The “suitcase scandal” was later disproven “after numerous independent reviews, including by President Trump’s own political appointees at the Department of Justice,” Mr. Thompson points out in his letter.
“Yet, after these allegations were shown to be false, you and the Trump campaign continued to spread those very narratives,” Mr. Thompson wrote.
In the letter, Mr. Thompson quotes a Dec. 8, 2020, email from Mr. Gingrich to White House officials in which he says the goal behind the TV advertisements was to “arouse the country’s anger through new verifiable information the American people have never seen before.”
“If we inform the American people in a way they find convincing and it arouses their anger[,] they will then bring pressure on legislators and governors,” Mr. Gingrich wrote to the advisers, according to Mr. Thompson.
The emails came on the heels of Georgia state official Gabe Sterling’s warnings of threats of violence against state election workers due to the claims of election fraud.
Mr. Thompson also said in the letter that Mr. Gingrich communicated with White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows regarding the scheme to submit illegitimate Electoral College certificates in favor of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Gingrich allegedly emailed Mr. Meadows at 10:42 p.m. on Jan. 6, after the Capitol had been cleared of rioters, to ask about “letters from state legislators about decertifying electors,” according to Mr. Thompson.
“Accordingly, you appear to have been involved with President Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of the election results, even after the attack on the Capitol,” Mr. Thompson wrote.
The committee is requesting that Mr. Gingrich appear for a voluntary transcribed interview on Sept. 19.
The panel held a series of public hearings over the summer to unpack its findings after its nearly yearlong investigation and is expected to hold more hearings beginning this month.
Source:Washington Times
