CNN —
During a private meeting last summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told two police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the mother of a third who died after the riot, that former President Donald Trump had no idea his supporters were carrying out the attack, according to newly obtained audio of the conversation.
Testimony to the House Select Committee on January 6 revealed that Trump watched television for hours as the rioters engaged in a brutal fight with law enforcement.
But McCarthy maintained Trump was unaware of the violence inside the Capitol when he spoke with Trump by phone that afternoon. He also appeared to take credit for getting the then-President to make a late-afternoon public statement urging his supporters to “go home,” according to one of the meetings’ attendees, then-DC Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone.
“I’m just telling you from my phone call, I don’t know that he did know that,” McCarthy said during the June 2021 meeting about Trump’s knowledge of the fighting, according to audio secretly recorded by Fanone at the time and detailed in his new book titled, “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.”
The District is a single-party consent jurisdiction for recordings, meaning it is legal for one party to record another without permission. CNN has reached out to McCarthy’s office for comment.
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