New York Democrats Call for January 6 Investigation Into Zeldin

Hot on the heels of an election fraud probe into the GOP nominee’s gubernatorial campaign, Democrats ask the January 6 committee to have a go at the representative of Long Island.

AP/John Minchillo
Representative Lee Zeldin on March 1, 2022. AP/John Minchillo

New York’s Democratic county leaders voted unanimously Wednesday to “call on January 6th Select Committee to investigate” the Republican nominee for governor of New York, Representative Lee Zeldin.

They argued that “the state and the nation must be aware of any possible involvement” in the events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol as Mr. Zeldin runs for “higher office in the State of New York.” 

They cite concerns that Mr. Zeldin “strongly supported President Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results but also has years-long connections to extremist groups like the Oath Keepers, who played an essential role” in the rioting that day.

Mr. Zeldin’s campaign responded to the call for investigation, arguing that the New York Democratic Party chairman, Jay Jacobs, “ is doing more than anyone to delegitimize the January 6th Committee.”

Governor Hochul and “her pathetic henchmen are desperate to distract away from all of the ways they are destroying New York,” a spokeswoman told the Sun. 

Mr. Zeldin’s campaign argues that his so-called years-long connections to the Oath Keepers is an unfair representation of a singular interaction that Mr. Zeldin had with veterans and former law enforcement officials at the Trade Promotion Authority.

Mr. Jacobs and his office have declined to comment on the response from Mr. Zeldin’s campaign. So far, no one has been charged in a formal proceeding with incitement to insurrection on January 6, except President Trump.

The former president, in his second impeachment, was, after being accused by the House on an almost straight party line vote, put on trial in the Senate for incitement. At the trial, Mr. Trump was found to be “not guilty” and acquitted. 

The call for a new investigation of Mr. Zeldin comes shortly after the Long Island congressman’s gubernatorial campaign became embroiled in an election fraud investigation of its own.

The New York State Board of Elections scrapped around a quarter of the campaign’s collected signatures — 12,868 of the 52,096 — for Mr. Zeldin to appear on the Independence Party line in November.

The challenge was brought by Andrew Kolstee of the New York Libertarian Party and an independent Senate candidate, Diane Sare. They accused the Zeldin campaign of photocopying signatures, a claim that Mr. Zeldin’s campaign has denied.

“The Zeldin campaign’s attempt to defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing thousands of photocopied signatures is a slap in the face to New York State voters and the election process,” Mr. Kolstee said in a statement.


The New York Sun

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