WASHINGTON — Kashyap Patel, a former Defense Department official in the Trump administration who was involved in security planning and responding to the Jan. 6 insurrection, did not appear Thursday for his scheduled deposition before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6.
“He didn’t show up. He’s continuing to engage,” Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the panel, told CQ Roll Call. “We have a limited threshold of patience for that.”
The committee is set to meet later Thursday.
Although Patel didn’t show up for his scheduled deposition, he has been fundraising off the subpoena issued to him and has criticized the panel as “corrupt.”
Stephen Bannon, a onetime adviser to former President Donald Trump, was also scheduled to appear Thursday, but he has indicated he would not comply with the panel’s investigation. Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, the former White House deputy chief of staff for communications, are supposed to testify Friday.
“I’ll tell you the committee is determined that we are going to — even if, you know, like it takes a while to get it to happen,” Kinzinger said. “We’re gonna do everything we can to compel that.”
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the panel and have taken considerable blowback from the GOP for participating. Even before she joined the committee, Cheney was purged from her No. 3 slot in House Republican leadership for speaking out against Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from him.
Kinzinger said, “Liz and I have put everything into this committee. ... We’re not gonna be weak on it.”
The committee has said it would refer criminal contempt of Congress charges to the Department of Justice if individuals such as Bannon don’t cooperate. That process could be lengthy, and whether they can get all the information they need for a comprehensive investigation remains to be seen.
Kinzinger said the panel thinks the DOJ will be “very cooperative” and said the department has been thus far.
He added, “If a criminal referral is passed out of the House and signed by the speaker, that is, I think that’s guaranteed to be slated for grand jury. The question is just when.”
People have been cooperating with the committee, including Jeffrey Rosen, who served as acting attorney general under Trump.
Even with efforts by some to slow or impede the process, Kinzinger said he is hopeful they will get what they need for their investigation.
“We have people that are voluntarily talking to us, you know, and so as we start to build this up, you can kind of triangulate around some of these big people that we’re pulling in,” Kinzinger said. “And so I think we’ll be able to, even with stalls, we’ll be able to get a lot of information — I hope, I mean, but I’ve never been through this before either.”
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