Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani may not appear before the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
Giuliani backed out of his appearance after the panel refused to allow him to record the interview. Without Giuliani, the committee will lose access to documents and the testimony from one of Trump’s inner circle involved in the attempt to overturn the results from the 2020 presidential election.
The committee had been expecting to receive documents from Giuliani related to Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, as outlined in a subpoena by House investigators earlier in the year, The Guardian reported.
However, Giuliani announced he would only appear before the committee if he would not have to violate attorney-client privilege and if it did not involved the subpoena, which he described as part of an illegal investigation.
Giuliani had been expected to agree to a deal where he would not be forced to violate privilege and also not have to testify against Trump, while providing information to the panel so he would avoid being held in contempt of Congress.
But the deal fell through on Thursday after Giuliani requested to record the interview so that he could avoid being ensnared in a perjury charge by a secondary investigation.
Giuliani is expected to make a final decision once the panel responds to his request, and may reschedule his appearance.