602A Phone Interview w/ IDES (compensation, severance, rated)

[Highllini]

I was laid off in April of last year. I started filing for benefits as of 5/15/2020. I received a letter today indicating I will have a phone interview in a week. The letter says my employer indicated I was discharged, (likely for performance, but NOT for misconduct of which I'm aware). To resolve the question, I need to supply information regarding 602A. The letter says misconduct applies to my eligibility in this case (which may mean it applies to eligibility, but not that I have been accused of any misconduct). I have read a number of posts on this forum and there are a few distinctions to be made here:

A) My eligibility is in question for the period beginning 11/15/2020. Is this possibly pandemic related? Maybe I've been receiving pandemic related benefits after 6 months, and my employer is saying my termination was not pandemic related? If so, maybe I was eligible for the normal period, but not eligible for extended benefits? I've just been certifying every week without doing anything different this whole time.

B) Presumably if there was 602A misconduct, my benefits should have been in question from the very beginning, not from six months after I started receiving benefits. Again, there was no willful misconduct that led to termination. There was a performance discussion about a year before termination in which a quasi PIP was put in place (I saw quasi because it was called a PIP, but there were no measurable metrics or timeline, just a general "do better"). A few months after that, I was given a $5k annual compensation bump, which would be a little suspect if my performance was so poor.

Contrary to some of the advice here, I plan on taking the call, but don't plan on giving them anything, basically saying:

1) I was involuntarily separated from the company, and paid a severance.
2) No specific incident or reason was given for my termination.
3) There was no indication that the termination was for willful misconduct.
4) To the best of my knowledge and given the timing, my termination was pandemic related. There's no indication to the contrary.

The letter makes it sound like this was initiated by my former employer, but from all of the other stories I've read, that doesn't sound like it's usually the case. Any other advice?