Former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump testified on April 5 before the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the origins of the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
The former senior adviser to the president testified remotely for several hours regarding the incident after declining to plead the Fifth Amendment or invoke executive privilege.
“She’s answering questions. I mean, you know, not in a broad, chatty term, but she’s answering questions,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the panel’s chairman, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Thompson added that Ivanka “came in on her own, that has obviously significant value” adding that the committee “did not have to subpoena.”
The Epoch Times has contacted a spokesperson for Ivanka Trump for comment.
The committee first wrote a letter to Ivanka Trump (pdf) requesting her appearance in January, noting that the questions asked would be limited to the “activities that contributed to or influenced events” on that day and her “role in the White House during that period.”
Trump’s daughter was in the West Wing of the White House on the day of the Capitol breach.
“On January 6th, you were serving as Advisor to the President and head of the White House Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship, and were present in the West Wing of the White House,” Thompson wrote to Trump at the time. “We write to request your voluntary cooperation with our investigation on a range of critical topics.”
Trump’s appearance before the select committee comes a week after her husband, Jared Kushner, also appeared virtually before the nine-member bipartisan committee, which includes seven Democrats.
Kushner, like his wife, also served as a senior adviser to the Trump administration and is the only other family relative to have testified before the committee, aside from his wife.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the panel, told MSNBC of Kushner’s attendance, “It was really valuable for us to have the opportunity to speak to him.”
“He was able to voluntarily provide information to us to verify, substantiate, provide his own take on this different reporting,” she said.
Lawmakers have accused the former president of encouraging violence at the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, a claim Trump strongly denies.
The House select committee has subpoenaed a number of people as part of its investigation, including former Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn, former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Former senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller filed a lawsuit on March 9 to block a subpoena from the committee for his phone records after they accused him of spreading misinformation about the November 2020 presidential election and alleged voter fraud.
Meanwhile, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell sued the select committee in an effort to stop telecommunications company Verizon from sharing his information with the panel after it issued a subpoena for all of Lindell’s cellphone records.
In January, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said he would not voluntarily cooperate with the select committee after they formerly requested he appear and testify, calling the request “unprecedented and inappropriate.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
