Former Trump press aide Sarah Matthews appears before Jan. 6 panel

by Caroline Vakil - 02/09/22 3:14 PM ET

Rep. Jan. 6 Select Committee vote to hold Jeffery Clark in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. — Greg Nash

Sarah Matthews, a former Trump press aide, appeared voluntarily before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol on Tuesday, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill.

The source said that Matthews was asked by the committee about the White House’s activities on the day of the insurrection. ABC News was the first to report about Matthews’s sit-down.

Matthews is among several GOP staffers who formerly worked for Trump to whom the committee has reached out. She currently works as the communications director for Republicans on the House Select Climate Committee.

A spokesperson for the committee said they had no comment on the matter to The Hill.

The former Trump deputy press secretary was among a handful of White House aides to leave their positions following the insurrection at the Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob sought to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.

Other aides who announced their departures included former first lady Melania Trump’s former chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, and former White House social secretary Rickie Niceta.

“I was honored to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted. As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today,” Matthews said in a statement. “I’ll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”

Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the attack, Matthews said that Trump “failed to meet the moment” and labeled the attack as a “coup attempt.”

“Make no mistake, the events on the 6th were a coup attempt, a term we’d use had they happened in any other country, and former President Trump failed to meet the moment,” Matthews wrote in a thread on Twitter last month. “While it might be easier to ignore or whitewash the events of that day for political expediency — if we’re going to be morally consistent — we need to acknowledge these hard truths.”

—Updated at 3:38 p.m.