January 06, 2026

Chairman Aguilar on ABC News Live: This is another example of Donald Trump trying to whitewash what actually happened. We were there that day.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, and former member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, joined ABC News Live with host Elizabeth Schulze to discuss the five year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection and the military strikes conducted by the U.S. in Venezuela. You can watch the full interview here and read the transcript of the Chairman’s interview below.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: Joining us now from Capitol Hill is Democratic California Congressman Pete Aguilar. Congressman, thanks so much for being here today. On the Senate floor today, we heard Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say that his briefing with top administration officials last night, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, failed to answer key questions about Venezuela. We know that all lawmakers, sources tell us, will be briefed tomorrow, including you. What are your biggest unanswered questions at this point, Congressman?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: What's the strategy? What's the end game? I think that all members of Congress want to know what strategy the administration has. Look, we all understand that Nicolas Maduro was an illegitimate leader and a dictator. I don't lose any sleep about him not being in power, but what I do lose sleep over is the potential for young service members to be in harm's way. The fact that the President didn't rule out boots on the ground in Venezuela, the fact that he continues to talk about this being about oil, not about narco-trafficking. These are all questions that the administration has to answer, and they have to come to Congress and understand that Congress is a coequal branch of government here. And they are dangerously close to this edge, and they continue to go their own way, which is just deeply problematic. And I think the American people understand that.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: What steps can you or are you prepared to take to get some of those answers from the administration?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: We'll see. Sometimes in these larger classified settings, it's difficult to get them to answer questions. They do a very good job, as we've seen in prior classified sessions, of just filling up the time talking, as Marco Rubio did in prior classified sessions, when it has been reported that he said that occupation was not what the administration was seeking. Those things are not helpful to the relationship that we have between the Executive and the Congressional branch here, but we're going to go and we want to hear what the administration has to say, hoping that they detail more concrete plans and a detailed strategy on what the path forward is.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: What do you think or hope is the plan for it? I'm sure a lot of your constituents are asking you that question, wondering, why did we do this? What is the plan here in the next few days, weeks, months, years?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: I think what a lot of constituents are asking is, why is the President talking about investing in oil infrastructure when we have infrastructure here at home that needs help? Why are we going to send billions of dollars, potentially, to oil companies, multi-trillion dollar entities, when we have needs here at home? I think that's what the American public wants to know, and that's what they're asking us as elected officials to be mindful of. So I think those are some of the big variables, or the lack of the President ruling out boots on the ground and the resources that could be expended in this Venezuelan mission. The President hasn't detailed any of that. As an Appropriator, we're concerned about the resources that the DOD has already spent on these activities. We've been briefed in a classified session on those activities. We're going to have to continue to get briefed on what those costs actually are.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: The President even suggesting that the U.S. could reimburse those oil companies, Congressman.

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Yeah, I mean, that would take an act of Congress. And clearly, that's not something that they're interested in seeking. So we don't know where this money would be coming from. This is, again, all part of the plan that the administration should have to come and detail. For people like Marco Rubio, who have been here in Congress as a Senator, he would not accept what the administration is saying right now as an adequate answer. The fact that he's peddling these theories now is just incredibly frustrating to a lot of us who respect the norms and the rule of law and how things have been done in the past here in Congress.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: As you well know, there in Congress today marks five years since the January 6th attack on the Capitol. In a new website today, the White House is attempting to rewrite the history of what happened that day, putting the blame on Capitol police officers, blaming former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. You were there at the Capitol that day. Your reaction to this, Congressman?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: I was there that day. I served on the January 6th Commission. My face is featured on that website that I thought was a fake website, honestly, when I saw it for the first time. This is just another reason and another example of Donald Trump trying to whitewash what actually happened. We were there that day. We understand that the thousands of people who came to the Capitol grounds here, many of them wishing harm on members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, who got in the way of Donald Trump and weren't listening to him. We understand that the President sat for three hours in the White House while the attack on the Capitol was going on. And those people came, and some of them testified again here this morning, to members of Congress, that they came at the request of President Trump. They knew that he wanted them here, and as a result, they received a pardon for that. So after years of prosecutorial work against those individuals, the first act that the President did when he assumed office last year was pardoning 1,500 violent individuals. Many of them were serving sentences in federal prisons as a result of their actions, and now many of them have gone on to reoffend, carrying on a litany of charges from assaulting police officers to domestic abuse all around the country. These individuals are spread across virtually every state, reoffending, all because Donald Trump asked them to come to the Capitol. They did what he asked them to do, and he rewarded them.

ELIZABETH SCHULZE: Congressman Pete Aguilar, I appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for joining us.

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Thanks, Elizabeth.

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