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Former White House press aide appears before Jan. 6 committee

By Benjamin Siegel and Will Steakin, ABC News Feb 9, 2022 | 12:25 PM


Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — Sarah Matthews, a Trump White House press aide who resigned over the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, appeared Tuesday for an interview with the House select committee investigating the attack, sources familiar with her appearance told ABC News.

Matthews, who declined to comment, appeared before the committee voluntarily, a source told ABC News. She is one of several former Trump aides approached by the committee who now work as GOP congressional staffers.

“I was honored to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted,” she said in a statement announcing her resignation on Jan. 6, 2021. “As someone who worked in the halls of Congress, I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”

Matthews was one of a handful of Trump aides and administration officials to resign following the Capitol attack — a list that includes first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

The committee questioned Matthews about activities inside the White House on Jan. 6, according to a source, as investigators work to reconstruct then-President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 using official records and call logs obtained from the National Archives.

Committee officials declined to comment.

The panel has also successfully subpoenaed the phone records of Trump White House staffers including former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, ABC News previously reported.

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told ABC News the committee was scheduled to interview multiple former White House officials this week.

The committee has conducted nearly 500 interviews and has received tens of thousands of pages of Trump White House records from the National Archives.

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