and speak to them. it s a different investigation and the nature of it is different. there s also the hanging threads about subpoenas they put out to sitting members of congress on the republican side, five of them, who ignored the subpoenas and now are going to be in the position of wanting to do their own investigations with their own subpoenas. you sort of end up in a situation where the shoe is on the other foot. it s why several republican members initially voted for contempt referrals for people like steve bannon because they wanted to show a congressional subpoena has teeth and should be respected and enforced so when they had subpoena power they would actually get people to obey their subpoenas. republicans are now in a situation where they ignored january 6 committee subpoenas and some of those same lawmakers are going to be issuing their own subpoenas, potentially to democrats, potentially to members of the bidn administration. there s a precedent if you think it s too partis
and they rr cooperating and we ve seen cases where there are contempt referrals as we saw with steve bannon who was prosecuted and convicted for that, so that s going to be a really big question before the committee among many others that they need to consider in the coming weeks this month coming up in august. katty, final question to you, bringing in donald trump or mike pence would be an incredibly charged political moment for the country to see them before the committee? what is the calculation? do they need the testimony or do they need the information due to what they ve publicly built and continue to build so far. they have hundreds of hours of testimonial ready. they ve spoken to people who were in the white house at the time. they have documentary evidence in the form of text messages and emails. they would really have to feel that there was a piece of the puzzle they could not get without donald trump before
the world of the committee and it account open doors, as well. what do they have to say about where it lands? is there a consensus among the committee members about some of these pressing issues? not quite. i also talked to chairman tofrm son about that today, and he mentioned nothing is off the table on the gop members that were subpoenaed and this includes gop leader kevin mccarthy. that includes contempt referrals and committee members need to come to a consensus. they re not quite there yet. he said they re meeting every few days and so through those meetings, he kept emphasizing we re not closed for business. we have a lot of work to do and that is one in terms of the gop members, among many issues that they re going to be taking up in the coming weeks and trying to make these difficult decisions on what are the next steps if you have these republican members who have been subpoenaed
law. but the panel would recommend that the doj charge trump with some sort of crime or crimes related to january 6th, would the panel do that? no. u ruling it out right now? we don t have to authority to. quote, we don t have the authority. fact check, famous there s a method for congress to make contempt referrals and criminal referrals. that may have been something of a misstatement, because actually chairman thompson then spoke again to nbc just today. it s not off the table, a criminal referral is not off the table? who said it s not off the table? i think some may have interpreted your comments yesterday. that s some people. mr. thompson has a lot of respect in the committee, but this does sound like a somewhat politician s response, that some people, but in all fairness and
criminal contempt charge, looking at others s could try to bargain that away with the doj, as part of the doj s ongoing look at some of the political actors which they know, we we know has now begun. but these contempt referrals the congress dearly wants and wants the sort of the doj to have its back and it does today come at a cost in their own investigation. they re not going to see squat now from navarro for the hearings that are going begin in a few days. jackie, republicans on capitol hill who are have always been completely steadfast supporting donald trump on pretty much everything but not always willing to support some of donald trump c oust terie.