Mississippi committee chair Bennie Thompson told reporters that unlike some witnesses who appeared before the committee, he did not try to invoke the Fifth Amendment or the executive privilege to avoid giving information to the committee. “Answer questions,” Thompson said. “Not in a broad, talkative term, but it answers questions.” Her appearance came less than a week after her husband, Jared Kouchner, appeared voluntarily before the committee. One of the Democrats on the committee, Virginia MP Elaine Luria, described her long testimony as “really valuable” in helping to verify and document the facts under investigation. The commission first wrote to Ivanka Trump asking for her appearance in January and has been negotiating her appearance ever since. In the request, Thompson said investigators would like to ask Ivanka Trump about a telephone conversation her father had with Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of Jan. 6 while she was at the Oval Office. Thompson wrote that Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, was also present at the call and told the select committee that he called on the former president to encourage Pence to reject the state ballot during the joint congressional session or to delay the counting of votes. Kellogg, according to Thompson’s letter, testified that Ivanka Trump turned to him at the end of the call and said: “Mike Pence is a good man.” Thompson also said the commission had testified that White House staff had repeatedly called for Ivanka Trump’s help “to intervene in an effort to persuade President Trump to address the continuing lawlessness and violence” at the Capitol. Thompson told CBS News Monday night that the committee is not currently seeking testimony from the former vice president. “No attempt is being made by the commission to persuade him to come,” he said. “We know that people invaded here wanting to hang him. We know that his security forces had to protect him in an unknown location on the Capitol. So there are many things that day that we know. We know the people who tried to get him to change. “opinion, about the count and all that. So what do we need?” Ivanka Trump’s scheduled appearance also took place as Parliament heads to a vote on a resolution in which former Trump aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro despise Congress for defying calls to appear before the committee. Maryland Democrat Jamie Ruskin, who is on the committee, said Tuesday afternoon that the committee “has a lot of work ahead,” but that members still “hope” that public hearings could begin in May. He added that the commission “has certainly made some great discoveries in our research”. Zak Hudak and Scott MacFarlane contributed to this report.
Attack on the US Capitol
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Rebecca Kaplan covers Congress for CBS News.
