CONGRESS
Jan. 6 committee subpoenas 4 from Trump's inner
circle
The four will be commanded to produce relevant
documents by Oct. 7 and appear for depositions the following week.
By KYLE
CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU
09/23/2021
07:34 PM EDT
Updated:
09/23/2021 09:16 PM EDT
The select
panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is issuing subpoenas to four
current and former top aides to President Donald Trump, including his most
recent chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The
committee issued its first subpoenas on Thursday to Meadows; former Pentagon
official and longtime House Intelligence Committee aide Kash Patel; former top
White House adviser Steve Bannon; and longtime Trump social media chief Dan
Scavino. It marks a turning point in the investigation as lawmakers begin homing
in on Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
The Jan. 6
committee's chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), had foreshadowed Wednesday
that the first subpoenas would go out imminently, as the panel kicks into high
gear with the goal of finishing its work by next spring. The four Trump
associates will be commanded to produce relevant documents by Oct. 7 and appear
for depositions the following week.
“The Select
Committee has revealed credible evidence of your involvement in events within the
scope of the Select Committee’s inquiry,” Thompson wrote in the letter to
Meadows, saying he has "critical information regarding many elements of
our inquiry."
In a
statement released shortly after the subpoenas were issued, Trump lashed out at
the panel and reiterated his discredited claims about the results of the 2020
election.
"We
will fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds, for the good
of our Country," Trump said in the statement, deriding the panel as the
"Unselect Committee."
Hundreds of
those charged in breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6 have cited Trump's false
claims about election fraud as a motivating factor for their decision to travel
to Washington ahead of what turned into the violent attack.
The
issuance of subpoenas marks a sharp escalation in the two-month-old committee's
activity. The panel is bracing for resistance from the four Trump associates —
Thompson and other committee members indicated that they would issue immediate
subpoenas to those they felt would be "recalcitrant."
In a
statement released later Thursday, Patel said: "I am disappointed, but not
surprised, that the Committee tried to subpoena me through the press and
violated longstanding protocol — which I upheld as a congressional staffer — by
resorting to compulsory process before seeking my voluntary cooperation. I will
continue to tell the truth to the American people about the events of January
6th."
The letters
cite a mix of news reports and documents obtained by the committee to suggest
that the aides have information relevant to their investigation. For example,
in the letter to Bannon — the longtime boss of Breitbart News who helped lead
Trump’s 2016 campaign in its final months — the committee cited passages from
“Peril,” the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, as a basis for seeking
his testimony.
Patel, a
veteran of House Intel Ranking Member Devin Nunes' staff before Trump tapped
him for a series of high-profile national security jobs, was the chief of staff
to Defense Secretary Christopher Miller in the waning days of the Trump
administration. The panel says it believes he has documents that would reveal
the White House's involvement in "preparing for and responding to the
attack on the U.S. Capitol."
The
committee also cites "Peril" as a basis for calling Scavino, who
noted that the book suggested Scavino was at Trump's side the night before the
Jan. 6 insurrection and helped Trump develop his messaging in the run-up to the
certification of the Electoral College.
"It
also appears that you were with or in the vicinity of former President Trump on
Jan. 6 and are a witness regarding his activities that day," Thompson
wrote.
Meridith
McGraw contributed to this report
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