January 6 panel subpoenas Mo Brooks, four other GOP lawmakers
A House panel issued subpoenas Thursday to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other GOP lawmakers in its probe into the violent January 6 insurrection, an extraordinary step that has little precedent and is certain to further inflame partisan tensions over the 2021 attack. The panel is investigating McCarthy’s conversations with then-President Donald Trump the day of the attack and meetings the four other lawmakers had with the White House beforehand as Trump and his aides worked to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The former president’s supporters violently pushed past police that day, broke through windows and doors of the Capitol, and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The decision to issue subpoenas to McCarthy, R-Calif., and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama is a dramatic show of force by the panel, which has already interviewed nearly 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 100,000 documents as it investigates the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries. The move is not without risk, as Republicans are favored to capture back the House majority in this fall’s midterm elections and have promised retribution for Democrats if they take control. After the announcement, McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker, told reporters, “I have not seen a subpoena” and said his view on the January 6 committee has not changed since the nine-lawmaker panel asked for his voluntary cooperation earlier this year. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation,” McCarthy said. “Seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.” Similarly, Perry told reporters the investigation is a “charade” and said the subpoena is “all about headlines.” Neither man said whether he would comply. The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, had previously asked for voluntary cooperation from the five lawmakers, along with a handful of other GOP members, but all of them refused to speak with the panel, which debated for months whether to issue the subpoenas. “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily,” said Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel. “Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused, and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th.” Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice-chair, said the step wasn’t taken lightly. The unwillingness of the lawmakers to provide relevant information about the attack, she said, is “a very serious and grave situation.” Congressional subpoenas for sitting members of Congress, especially for a party leader, have little precedent in recent decades, and it is unclear what the consequences would be if any or all of the five men decline to comply. The House has voted to hold two other noncompliant witnesses, former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, in contempt, referring their cases to the Justice Department. In announcing the subpoenas, the January 6 panel said there is historical precedent for the move and noted that the House Ethics Committee has “issued a number of subpoenas to members of Congress for testimony or documents,” though such actions are generally done secretly. “We recognize this is fairly unprecedented,” said Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other GOP member of the panel, after the committee announced the subpoenas. “But the January 6 attack was very unprecedented.” Kinzinger said it is “important for us to get every piece of information we possibly can.” McCarthy has acknowledged he spoke with Trump on January 6 as Trump’s supporters were beating police outside the Capitol and forcing their way into the building. But he has not shared many details. The committee requested information about his conversations with Trump “before, during, and after” the riot. McCarthy took to the House floor after the rioters were cleared and said in a forceful speech that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack and that it was the “saddest day I have ever had” in Congress — even as he went on to join 138 other House Republicans in voting to reject the election results. Another member of the GOP caucus, Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, said after the attack that McCarthy had recounted that he told Trump to publicly “call off the riot” and said the violent mob was made up of Trump supporters, not far-left Antifa members, as Trump had claimed. “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ’Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Herrera Beutler said in a statement last year. The GOP leader soon made up with Trump, though, visiting him in Florida and rallying House Republicans to vote against investigations of the attack. The other four men were in touch with the White House for several weeks ahead of the insurrection, talking to Trump and his legal advisers about ways to stop the congressional electoral count on January 6 to certify Joe Biden’s victory. “These members include those who participated in meetings at the White House, those who had direct conversations with President Trump leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol, and those who were involved in the planning and coordination of certain activities on and before January 6th,” the committee said in a release. Brooks, who has since been critical of Trump, spoke alongside the former president at the massive rally in front of the White House the morning of January 6, telling supporters to “start taking down names and kicking ass” before hundreds of them broke into the Capitol. Perry spoke to the White House about replacing acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with an official who was more sympathetic to Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, and Biggs was involved in plans to bring protesters to Washington and pressuring state officials to overturn the legitimate election results, according to the panel. Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, spoke to Trump on January 6 and was
Andrew Conkling: National Kidney Month provides reminder of cost hurdles for dialysis patients
The month of March marks National Kidney Month in the U.S., an opportunity to bring awareness to something that affects more than one in seven adults and a chance to reflect on the struggles kidney patients across the U.S. face every day. Currently, kidney patients face an uneven playing field, and a lot still needs to be accomplished in order to ensure that all patients have access to the care they need. It’s an unlevel field that I’ve been operating in for most of my life. I was born with only one functioning kidney, meaning I knew early on that I would eventually need to start on dialysis. While I was able to defy doctors’ expectations and reach age 25 before I needed to begin the treatments, I quickly learned just how difficult it can be for patients to simply afford the life-saving care that dialysis treatments provide. While Medicare covers 80 percent of the cost of dialysis treatments, patients usually need to undergo treatment three or more times each week, meaning that the remaining 20 percent can rapidly add up and create an increasingly large financial hurdle for patients and their families. Despite this challenge, many states across the U.S. – including my home state of Alabama – don’t require insurers to make Medigap plans to cover the costs Medicare doesn’t pay for available at affordable rates for patients under the age of 65. It’s a serious issue that completely hamstrings what patients are able to do and limits the type of life they can lead. This issue was especially important to my long-time mentor and close friend Jack Reynolds. He lived on dialysis for 45 years and devoted his life to advocating for other patients. He credited the ability to do that to the fact that he had access to Medigap coverage. This coverage gave him the financial stability and freedom to live his life the way he wanted to, and he wanted every other dialysis patient to be able to say the same. Now, Congress is considering a bill named in his memory which would make that dream a reality. The Jack Reynolds Memorial Medigap Expansion Act, which Representatives Cindy Axne (D-IA-3) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA-3) introduced last year, would guarantee that patients across the U.S. could affordably access Medigap coverage, no matter where in the country they live. Patients would no longer have to worry about whether their state requires those plans to be available in order to pay for the treatments they need to live. Passing this bill would be both a life-saver and an enormous stress reliever for countless patients and their families. It would give them a greater sense of financial security, offer much-needed peace of mind, and make it easier for patients to become and remain eligible for a kidney transplant. This bill is a fitting commemoration of Jack’s life and legacy and would ultimately give patients the level of freedom he valued so much. Jack took me under his wing early on and showed me how public policy can have a real, tangible impact on dialysis patients’ lives. The Jack Reynolds Memorial Medigap Expansion Act is a remarkable opportunity to help a group of patients that has too often been left behind and would mark a milestone achievement for kidney care in the U.S. As we approach the close of National Kidney Month, I hope that lawmakers recognize this opportunity and pass this essential bill. Andrew Conkling is the president of the Dialysis Patient Citizens Board of Directors.
