ATLANTA — Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker involved in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, is willing to give an interview to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after certain conditions are met, his lawyer said Thursday.
Gingrich, a staunch ally of Trump, was asked to appear before the committee in a Sept. 1 letter from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who serves as the panel’s chair. The letter noted that the committee’s investigators had obtained evidence that Gingrich had been in touch with senior advisers to Trump about advertisements that amplified false claims about election fraud in the November 2020 election.
According to Thompson, Gingrich urged the Trump campaign to run ads focused on the bogus assertion that suitcases of fake ballots had been smuggled into a vote processing area by election workers in Atlanta.
Gingrich, 79, a former member of Congress from Georgia, rose to power and fame in the early 1990s promoting a so-called Contract with America, a statement of conservative governing principles. Gingrich has also been ordered to give testimony Nov. 16 before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is conducting a criminal investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse Trump’s loss in the Southern state.
A court hearing in Fairfax County, Virginia, where Gingrich lives, on whether he must testify in Georgia is scheduled for Wednesday.
However, in an interview on Thursday, Gingrich’s lawyer, J. Randolph Evans, said that he hoped a Virginia judge would be convinced that Gingrich’s testimony before members of Congress would render his client’s appearance in Atlanta unnecessary.
“The idea being that if this really is about information, presumably the Jan. 6 committee would do a good job and obviate the need for testimony in Georgia,” Evans said.
Evans
