Nov. 9 (UPI) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol on Monday subpoenaed six members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
The committee said in a statement that subpoenas were sent to staff members of Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign and individuals associated with a “war room” that “drove efforts to halt the counting of electoral votes in the runup to the violence of Jan. 6.”
Among those subpoenaed were William Stepien, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, a national executive assistant for the campaign; John Eastman, who reportedly advised Trump that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from states; as well as Michael Flynn and Bernard Kerik, who reportedly participated in meetings to discuss claims of election fraud.
“In the days before the Jan. 6 attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisors drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes,” committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said. “The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all.”
The subpoenas order the recipients to supply the committee with documents by Nov. 23, and schedules depositions from the individuals from the final week of November through the middle of December.
Thompson said the committee “expects all witnesses to cooperate with our investigation as we work to get answers for the American people, recommend changes to our laws that will strengthen our democracy and help ensure nothing like Jan. 6 ever happens again.”
Monday’s subpoena comes as the House last month voted to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for defying his subpoena to testify before the committee.
Trump had instructed Bannon and other fellow aides — former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino and former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel — to defy subpoenas from the select committee, citing executive privilege.
Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but later rescinded the plea and was pardoned by Trump last November.
