During Sunday’s MSNBC broadcast of “PoliticsNation,” Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) responded to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) criticism of the January 6 committee’s request for telecommunication companies to provide the private communications of people associated with the Capitol Hill riot.
McCarthy warned that the select committee’s request would put the United States on track to become a full-blown surveillance state. He said a GOP-led Congress would hold the companies fully accountable under the law.
According to Demings, who is running for U.S. Senate in Florida, McCarthy “needs to be careful” with his “ridiculous” threats to telecommunication companies.
“Leadership will show up during times of crisis, And what happened on January 6 was certainly a crisis. Look, Kevin McCarthy has a problem,” Demings outlined. “In spite his efforts to shut down any investigation at all, voted against the independent commission, and now to have the audacity to threaten the social media companies to say that, because all the chairman — Chairman Thompson, the head from the select committee — was to ask that those records be preserved.”
She continued, “That’s what you would do in any investigation within Congress, criminal or otherwise, ask that the records are preserved. And look, it was McCarthy who shared that he had had a conversation with the president on January 6, begging and pleading with the president to talk to the nation, talk to the insurrectionists and get them to stop it. And so, his threats are useless. They’re ridiculous. And he needs to be careful because I know that he will be a major part of this investigation. And so, I think he will be questioned enough. He does not need to give the committee additional questions about his efforts to obstruct the release of any records.”
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