Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn reportedly appeared before the Jan. 6 Select Committee on Thursday, but invoked the Fifth Amendment, according to multiple reports.
Flynn reportedly declined to answer the committee’s questions, exercising his Fifth Amendment on the “advice of counsel,” Flynn’s attorney David Warrington said in a statement.
Flynn’s deposition comes after the Committee subpoenaed him last year. The panel requested Flynn to testify about a meeting in Dec. 2020 he reportedly attended with then-President Trump in the Oval Office. In its letter to Flynn, the Committee noted that participants in the meeting discussed declaring a national emergency in an effort to push the Big Lie of a fraudulent 2020 election.
The day before the meeting, Flynn appeared on Newsmax TV to discuss the “purported precedent” for invoking martial law and deploying troops to “rerun” the election, the Committee said in its letter to Flynn.
Flynn was also allegedly involved in efforts to draft several memos ordering several federal agencies to seize voting machines. Trump ultimately did not sign the memos.
In a statement shared with CBS News, Warrington claimed that during Flynn’s deposition, the Committee’s staff staff “insinuated” that by declining to answer questions, Flynn was admitting guilt.
“The committee’s decision to depose General Flynn while these issues are before a court was little more than political theater designed to set up a false narrative based on the committee’s wrong view of the 5th Amendment,” Warrington said, adding that “most of the questions lacked any relation to the legislative purpose” for which the committee was founded, according to CBS News.
Last December, Flynn lost his lawsuit against the Committee over its subpoena for his phone records that compelled him to testify and to produce documents — a day after Flynn filed his motion in federal court in Florida.
Flynn asked a federal judge in Florida for a temporary restraining order, claiming that the committee’s subpoenas for his electronic records and testimony could violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in other investigations he’s linked to.
The judge ultimately ruled that Flynn failed to meet the procedural requirements needed for emergency intervention.
