Post Politics Now Leader McCarthy, Rep. Greene both have some explaining to do about Jan. 6

It seems unlikely that Greene will be disqualified from appearing on the 2022 ballot for her Georgia district — or that Friday’s hearing challenging her qualifications will do much to stop her reelection. The hearing, however, did bring to light some key details of how the controversial congresswoman recalls the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

As our colleague Aaron Blake notes, the hearing was the first time a member of Congress has given sworn testimony about what happened that day. And while Greene’s testimony wasn’t very extensive — she said she couldn’t “recall” details over and over again — it did shed a light on how Republicans, particularly those close to Trump, will describe the events of the day under oath.

As Aaron writes:

A few answers stand out, either because Greene’s responses didn’t make much sense, or because they’re likely to be revisited in the future. … It seems unlikely that anything established in the testimony would clear the legal bar of proving Greene incited the insurrection. Even if it did, it’s not totally clear that would meet the 14th Amendment’s requirement. But we finally have something to work with, from a congressional leader of the “Stop the Steal” movement.

During her testimony Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she couldn’t remember if she urged President Donald Trump to impose martial law to remain in power following his loss during the 2020 election.

“I don’t recall,” Greene told an attorney representing a group of Georgia plaintiffs who sued the congresswoman in an attempt to block her from running for reelection.

The plaintiffs argue that Greene can’t run for reelection because she aided the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.

“So you’re not denying you did it?” the attorney asked Greene. “You just don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember,” Greene replied.

Greene said dozens of times during the hearing that she couldn’t recall or remember her tweets or statements related to the Jan. 6 attack, Matthew Brown and Felicia Sonmez report.

The White House is preparing for the possibility that, if Republicans take control of one or both chambers of Congress next year, it will be forced to face a number of aggressive inquiries, Tyler Pager reports.

Biden officials, Tyler writes, have begun strategizing on how White House departments, especially the counsel’s office, may be restructured to respond to an onslaught of investigative requests.

The preparations include one notable return — Anita Dunn, a former top Biden aide who remains close to him, will come back to the White House as a senior adviser. She is expected to be involved in efforts to respond to potential GOP probes if control of Congress shifts, according to four people familiar with the matter, Tyler reports.

The administration is also bringing in Ian Sams, who formerly worked as a spokesman for Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign. Sams, Tyler writes, “was known as a hard-hitting and combative advocate — traits for which the White House looked in filling the role.”

More from Tyler:

The moves reflect an expectation that newly ascendant House Republicans in particular would immediately launch oversight investigations into such matters as the business dealings of President Biden’s son Hunter, the rocky U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and other politically sensitive matters.

Republicans across the party’s spectrum have voiced interest in pursuing such investigations, many suggesting that they’d do so in retaliation for the investigations House Democrats launched into former president Donald Trump, his business deals and his connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

You can read more about these preparations here.

If Kevin McCarthy is dislodged as the House Republican leader, who could take his place? — we asked our colleague Marianna Sotomayor, who covers Congress for The Washington Post.

If McCarthy is pushed out of Republican leadership following the release of audio in which he blames Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and says, “I’ve had it with this guy,” all eyes would be on Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), Marianna says. Scalise has been McCarthy’s No. 2 for quite some time, serving as House minority whip.

Scalise has long refused to acknowledge that former president Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud are false. Last October, when pressed on this issue by Fox News, Scalise refused to say whether the 2020 election was legitimate.

“I’ve been very clear from the beginning,” he said. “If you look at a number of states, they didn’t follow their state-passed laws that govern the election for president.”

Another option to replace McCarthy would be Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has been floated as a possible GOP House leader. Jordan is loyal to Trump and his false claims of election fraud, and has refused to cooperate with the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Jordan declined to comply with a request to appear before the panel to discuss his communications with Trump on the day of the attack.

Jordan, Marianna noted, has been floated as a possible replacement for McCarthy before. But last month at the House GOP conference in Florida, he insisted that McCarthy would be the next House speaker if Republicans won the majority in the November elections.

President Biden, in an event marking Earth Day in Seattle, said the United States can no longer ignore the climate crisis, even if his predecessor did.

“We’ve reached the point that the crisis on the environment has become so obvious — with the notable exception of the former president — that we really have an opportunity to do things we couldn’t have done two, five, 10 years ago,” said Biden, referencing Donald Trump without naming him directly.

The president said he will begin the process to make every vehicle in the U.S. military “climate friendly” and emphasized portions of the bipartisan infrastructure deal that are set to be more environmentally friendly, including the construction of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations around the nation and investments in rail and clean, electric modes of public transportation.

The president promised that these investments would get polluting cars “off the roads.”

“Last year, the United States deployed the most solar, wind and battery storage in American history, and we made record-setting investments in clean energy and rural America,” Biden said.

Biden also emphasized the importance of investing in solar and wind technology.

“By the way, windmills don’t cause cancer,” the president said, in another swipe at Trump, who has railed against the use of wind turbines, arguing that “they don’t work,” kill “all the birds” and are too expensive.

After his remarks Biden signed an executive order laying the groundwork for protecting some of the biggest and oldest trees in America’s forests.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during questioning Friday in relation to a lawsuit seeking to disqualify her from running for reelection, declined to say whether unlawfully interfering with the counting of electoral votes in a presidential election would make someone “an enemy of the Constitution.”

The Georgia Republican is testifying in Atlanta about her alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, our colleagues Matthew Brown and Felicia Sonmez report. The plaintiffs argue that Greene helped facilitate the insurrection.

Greene, on Friday, said she believes Joe Biden lost the 2020 election to President Donald Trump but claimed it was “not accurate” that she wanted Congress not to certify Biden as the winner.

Remember: There is no evidence that widespread voter fraud took place in the 2020 presidential race.

Greene, on the stand, also said “breaking the law is unlawful,” noting that more than 700 people have been charged with various crimes in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.

While Greene tried to draw some distance between herself and the Jan. 6 rioters, she has fiercely defended many of them before, visiting them in the D.C. jail and describing them as “patriots.”

Greene is quite popular among Trump’s base, and that was evident Friday — she walked into the courtroom to applause and cheers. Matt, who’s in Atlanta for the hearing, noted:

As we await direct word from former president Donald Trump about the leaked audio of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), The Post’s Aaron Blake takes a look at what history tells us about those who’ve spoken ill of Trump in the past. The results are mixed, Aaron relays:

On the one hand, Trump has been willing to overlook past criticisms — even harsh ones — provided the lawmaker in question proceeds to display the requisite obsequiousness. Trump recently endorsed Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance despite Vance having sharply criticized him in 2016 as unfit to be president.

On the other hand, insufficiently supporting his efforts to overturn the 2020 election have emerged as something of a red line for Trump. He has given most of his non-incumbent endorsements to bona fide election truthers, and reserves most of his venom these days for those he perceives to have wronged him after Election Day 2020.

McCarthy occupies something of a middle ground here. He appears to have earned goodwill from Trump for fighting the Jan. 6 committee. But is Trump really going to stand by and let someone who floated his resignation rise to a level of such power — likely leading the House during the 2024 election?

You can read Aaron’s full piece here.