Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser under then-President Donald Trump, is slated to testify Thursday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The New York Times reported that Pottinger was the highest ranking official to submit his resignation on Jan. 6. He and former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews — who resigned the same day — are expected to testify in a hearing that Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said “is going to open people’s eyes in a big way.”
According to CBS News, Pottinger said in February 2021 that Jan. 6 “was the moment where I felt it was appropriate for me to go.”
Pottinger previously testified before the Jan. 6 committee in June. CBS News reported that he told the committee that he made the decision to resign when Trump tweeted that former Vice President Mike Pence should have had more courage.
“I read that tweet. And made a decision at that moment to resign,” Pottinger said in a recorded message to the committee, per CBS News. “That’s where I knew that I was leaving that day, once I had read that tweet.”
According to The Hill, Pottinger joined the White House as a top adviser on Asia. He was instrumental in coordinating meetings between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He was appointed deputy national security adviser in 2019. Pottinger is not the first in his family to work in the White House — his father John Stanley Pottinger served as assistant attorney general under former presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Before Pottinger joined the White House, his Hoover Institute profile indicates that he was a reporter in China for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. The Hill reports that Pottinger enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2005. He had three combative deployments between 2007 and 2010 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now he is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute. His profile lists his areas of expertise as Asia, international security, media issues and relations and U.S.-China policy.
Yahoo News reported that Pottinger and other witnesses will provide information on when Trump learned that the Capitol was under attack, who he talked to during this time and why he waited so long to tell them to stop.
While Thursday’s hearing is likely the last public hearing of the summer, the investigation is still underway.