Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 6 more Trump associates in probeUpdated 12 hours ago

by · The Columbian
FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump stand outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A federal judge is questioning Donald Trump's efforts to withhold documents from Congress related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Judge Tanya Chutkan was skeptical Thursday, Nov. 4, of attorneys for the former president who asked her to block the handover of documents to a House committee. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A federal judge is questioning Donald Trump's efforts to withhold documents from Congress related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Judge Tanya Chutkan was skeptical Thursday, Nov. 4, of attorneys for the former president who asked her to block the handover of documents to a House committee. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

WASHINGTON — Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The committee’s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a “war room” ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.

“In the days before the January 6th attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes,” Thompson 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 come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers — some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.

The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trump’s false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Biden’s win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.

Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered “credible evidence” of their participation in the former president’s efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.

In Stepien’s subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the “conversion” of Trump’s presidential campaign to a “Stop the Steal” effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could “count on” them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.

Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification — a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastman’s outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called “war room” at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trump’s defeat.

In the letter to Flynn — the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump — Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants “discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”