Mulvaney: Republicans should pay attention to Jan. 6 hearings

Former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Republicans should pay attention to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, despite their misgivings about the panel.

“When Republicans start testifying under oath that other Republicans lost the 2020 election and then broke the law to try to change that, Republicans should pay attention. Everyone should,” Mulvaney wrote in an op-ed published in The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.

The panel has held a series of public hearings in recent weeks to detail the findings of its investigation into the Capitol attack and the events leading up to it, based on hundreds of witness interviews. More hearings are expected later this month.

Mulvaney, who was replaced as Trump’s chief of staff by Mark Meadows in March 2020 and resigned as special envoy to Northern Ireland on Jan. 6, wrote that he sympathized with Republicans who argue that the committee’s hearings are “a made-for-TV show trial” and that “there is no cross-examination of witnesses.”

“And they are correct,” he wrote. “On every single point. But they still should be paying attention.”

Mulvaney called testimony by former Attorney General William Barr, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows, “eminently credible,” despite his criticisms of the committee.

Those witnesses have been some of the most prominent during the committee’s public hearings. 

Barr testified that he was worried former President Trump had become “detached from reality” with his obsession with voter fraud in the 2020 election. Bowers testified he never told Trump the election was rigged, despite the former president saying he did.

And Hutchinson, who appeared at the committee’s most recent hearing, testified that Trump knew the crowd at his Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse was armed when he told attendees to march to the Capitol.

“Yes, it is possible that all of those life-long Republicans succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Mulvaney wrote of the witnesses. “It is possible they decided to ignore a life-long political affiliation. It is also possible they chose to perjure themselves about what they saw, heard and know.”

Hutchinson’s appearance in particular has come into question after she testified that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of his Secret Service vehicle following the Jan. 6 rally in an attempt to join his supporters at the Capitol. Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to refute that testimony.

“But if they didn’t, and half of the country isn’t paying attention, then that half of the country is clinging firmly to an opinion of Jan. 6, 2021 that is based on either false or incomplete information,” Mulvaney wrote. 

“And clinging firmly to a belief based on false or incomplete information can lead to disastrous results,” he continued. “January 6 itself is a stark reminder of that.”