Jan. 6 House committee seeks interview with Newt Gingrich

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building has asked former House speaker Newt Gingrich to voluntarily submit to questioning over his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The committee asked the one-time presidential hopeful to sit for an interview in a letter dated Thursday, stating it has information that indicates Gingrich has knowledge about former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election results, which led to the insurrection attempt on Congress.

The information obtained by the committee includes emails Gingrich exchanged with senior advisors to Trump, including the former president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in which Gingrich offered advice on television advertisements that "repeated and relied up false claims about fraud in the 2020 election," committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in the letter.

"These advertising efforts were not designed to encourage voting for a particular candidate," Thompson said. "Instead, these efforts attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the election after voting had already taken place."

The advertisements, according to Thompson, encouraged the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge the election results with the aim to have them overturned, and which aired leading up to Dec. 14, 2020, when electors from each state met to cast their presidential votes.

According to Thompson, Gingrich wrote in emails urging Trump's campaign to air advertisements that amplified the false claim made by the former president and others that election workers had smuggled suitcases stuffed with fake ballots into the voting counting location in Georgia.

Officials have investigated the claim and found it to be baseless and the suitcase was, in fact, an official ballot lockbox.

Thompson said in his letter that Gingrich provided line edits to scrips for the advertisements and was the one to suggest they include a "call-to-action" on pressuring state officials and push for the inclusion of the "suitcase scandal."

Gingrich has information about advertisements that perpetuated false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, sought to expand the reach of that messaging and likely was in contact with Trump about his efforts, Thompson said.

The committee chairman also said they have information connecting him with the effort to have fake electors cast votes for Trump in states won by President Joe Biden, including an email he sent the night of the attack on the Capitol to Mark Meadows, Trump's then-chief of staff, concerning the effort.

Thompson has asked Gingrich to sit down for a transcribed interview the week of Sept. 19.