The U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack will receive sworn testimony from Doug Mastriano, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania’s nominee to be governor. Mastriano, who has strong ties to far right wing extremists, is a current state senator, and an anti-democracy Christian nationalist who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory. He attended Donald Trump’s January 6 rally and reportedly was seen at the Capitol that day.
The New York Times has described Mastriano as a “prominent figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s futile efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results,”
Mastriano was subpoenaed to testify before the Committee in June, and is expected to testify on Tuesday.
He reportedly paid Gab, a far right wing social media platform headed by Andrew Torba, a white Christian nationalist with antisemitic views, $5000. Mastriano has praised Torba, saying, “Thank god for what you have done.”
Late last week Mastriano was reportedly trying to renege on his commitment to testify, Politico reported. His attorney wanted to record the deposition, which the January 6 Committee likely refused to allow.
But now he is scheduled for Tuesday.
Mastriano, “who was on the restricted grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6, is set to appear for a virtual deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee on Tuesday, his attorney confirms,” tweets NBC News Justice reporter Ryan Reilly, citing reporting from NBC’s Julia Jester.
The New Yorker in May called Mastriano “a leader of the Stop the Steal campaign, and claims that he spoke to Donald Trump at least fifteen times between the 2020 election and the insurrection at the Capitol, on January 6th.”
“He urged his followers to attend the rally at the Capitol that led to the riots, saying, ‘I’m really praying that God will pour His Spirit upon Washington, D.C., like we’ve never seen before.’ Throughout this time, he has cast the fight against both lockdowns and Trump’s electoral loss as a religious battle against the forces of evil. He has come to embody a set of beliefs characterized as Christian nationalism, which center on the idea that God intended America to be a Christian nation, and which, when mingled with conspiracy theory and white nationalism, helped to fuel the insurrection.”
The Times last month reported Mastriano was “addressing a far-right conference that mixed Christian beliefs with conspiracy theories, called Patriots Arise. Instead of focusing on issues like taxes, gas prices or abortion policy, he wove a story about what he saw as the true Christian identity of the nation, and how it was time, together, for Christians to reclaim political power.”
“The separation of church and state was a ‘myth,’ he said. ‘In November we are going to take our state back, my God will make it so.'”