In a bombshell revelation, former Representative Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) said former President Donald Trump White House’s links to the insurrection “need to be explored more.”
“You get a real ‘a-ha’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening,” Riggleman said in a released clip from an upcoming episode of “60 Minutes,” which is set to air on Sunday night.
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Riggleman served as a Republican Congressman until 2021 and worked as an adviser to the January 6 committee until April.
When host Bill Whitaker asked if the call from the White House could have been an accident, Riggleman replied: “When the White House just happened to call numbers, that somebody misdialed a rioter that day, on January 6th? Probably not.”
The former Congressman also said that he knows who the rioter is, but doesn’t know who was on the line at the White House.
Representatives for neither Trump nor the January 6 committee have responded to requests for comment, according to Newsweek.
Bill Kristol, former chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle, expressed concern for such a call in a tweet: “I placed many calls through the wonderful people at the White House switchboard during an earlier Republican Administration. I’m confident I never asked them to connect me with someone assaulting the U.S. Capitol. But that was a different era and a different Republican party.”
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Riggleman was rebuked by the committee in June, when he spoke about the findings of the committee in a CNN interview. House committee staff director David Buckley wrote in an internal email: “[Riggleman’s] specific discussion about the content of subpoenaed records, our contracts, contractors and methodologies, and your hard work is unnerving.” He added that Riggleman’s television appearance was “in direct contravention to his employment agreement.”
Riggleman disagreed, saying he spoke to CNN after he left the committee, so was no longer bound to such agreements.
The news of the White House phone connection comes days before the (potential) final January 6 committee hearing is scheduled to air on September 28.