Lincoln Project founder Steve Schmidt said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was a “villainous figure” who should be “locked in a basement office until he wishes to testify.”
Discussing McCarthy not cooperating with the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol, Schmidt said, “What Kevin McCarthy has become is this villainous figure that is among the most villainous figures that have been in the history of the American republic. He has played a profoundly important role over this last year through the lying, through the cover-up, of poisoning faith and belief in democracy.”
He added, “So in that moment, Kevin McCarthy was reading the situation. He understood how egregious this was. In the end, before he gets down to Mar-a-Lago, which was fundamentally about securing the financing pipeline for the House Republicans in the 2020 midterms, that’s what that meeting was substantially about. We have Kevin McCarthy at the center of this. He’s always been at the center of it. It continues to be at the center of it. The House should use every power that it has at its discretion, including an inherent contempt power that could see the sergeant of arms handcuff and detain Kevin McCarthy in a locked basement office until he wishes to testify.”
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