The Jan. 6 committee announced it subpoenaed former President Donald Trump on Friday.
During its public hearing last week, the panel unveiled plans to subpoena the former president and has been reportedly scrambling behind the scenes to track down a Trump lawyer to serve the subpoena. The panel emphasized his role in the efforts to overturn the election in its letter to Trump, accompanying the subpoena.
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“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power,” Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) wrote in a joint statement about the subpoena.
The panel demanded Trump deliver the requested documents by Nov. 4 and sit for deposition in person or through a video link around Nov. 14.
Investigators are seeking testimony and documents from Trump pertinent to the panel’s sprawling investigation. In its letter, the panel ripped the former president for peddling claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him despite being informed by staff that “your election claims were false.”
“In short, you were at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. President to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself,” the panel added in the letter.
“The select committee looks forward to your cooperation with this subpoena,” it added.
Behind the scenes, Trump has reportedly mused over the idea of testifying. In public, however, he has so far been tight-lipped about whether he will comply. He has also excoriated the committee as a “Charade and Witch Hunt.”
“The double standard of the Unselects between what has taken place on the ‘Right,’ and what has taken place with [the] radical Left, lawless groups such as antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others, is startling and will never be acceptable, even to those who will be writing the history of what you have done to America,” Trump wrote in a lengthy statement following news of the plans to subpoena him.
Trump has tapped the Dhillon Law Group to help navigate the legal squabbling with the committee, Politico reported. The firm previously represented other witnesses in the panel’s crosshairs, such as Michael Flynn and Sebastian Gorka.
Some targets of the panel such as Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, who defied committee subpoena requests, have faced contempt of Congress charges. Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail and $6,500 in fines for his contempt charges on Friday.
As a former president, Trump may raise a legal challenge to the subpoena in court. The panel was clear it believes it would prevail against such legal challenges, citing historical precedents.
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“Former Presidents John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford each testified before Congress after they left office,” Cheney and Thompson wrote. “Further, both former and sitting presidents including Presidents Nixon, Tyler, and Quincy Adams, have provided evidence in response to congressional subpoenas.”
Another factor at play is a possible looming Republican takeover of the House after the midterm elections. Republicans have signaled they plan to scrap the committee or alter its composition drastically. Trump may try to run out the clock.
