Jared Kushner was about to hop into the shower as supporters of his father-in-law tried to overthrow U.S. democracy on Jan. 6, 2021.
In testimony aired during Thursday night’s hearing of the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot, Kushner said he had the shower on when he was contacted by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy about the escalating violence as Congress met to certify the 2020 election results.
“So I heard my phone ringing, turned the shower off, saw it was Leader McCarthy, who I had a good relationship with. He told me it was getting really ugly over at the Capitol and said, please, anything you could do to help, I would appreciate it,” Kushner testified.
“I got the sense that they were scared,” he added.
He previously told The New York Times that he had the water running when he got the call and decided to forgo his post-flight shower to rush to the White House.
Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, who both served as senior advisers to Donald Trump, were heavily involved in the former president’s efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. Testimony has indicated they knew Trump’s claims to be false but helped him anyway. Those lies about the 2020 vote ultimately led to the violent insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Kushner also admitted in videotaped testimony shown at a committee hearing last month that he wrote off former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s threats to resign over Trump’s intentions to break the law as “whining.”