The move would be among the most aggressive by the committee since it formed last year. The former president would be all but certain to defy the subpoena, which could lead to a protracted legal battle.
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Members of the January 6 House committee gather during a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plans to issue a subpoena to former President Donald J. Trump to question him about his role in events that led to the violence that consumed Congress, according to a person familiar with its work, a remarkable escalation as the panel begins wrapping up its inquiry.
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, foreshadowed the move at the beginning of its hearing on Thursday, saying the panel would take a vote on “further investigative action” — a step the committee has not taken at any previous hearing.
The person who divulged that the action would include a subpoena did so on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly in advance. The subpoena vote plan was reported earlier by NBC News.
The vote was expected to come at the end of the panel’s latest hearing, in which it sought to refocus on the country’s attention on Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
A subpoena of the former president would be among the most aggressive moves by the committee since it was formed more than 15 months ago, but one that its members felt they had to take, given Mr. Trump’s central role in fighting the election results, according to the person familiar with the committee’s work. Lawmakers on the panel felt that their investigation would be incomplete without questioning Mr. Trump under oath, even though he would be all but certain to fight the subpoena, and attempts to enforce it would likely lead to a protracted legal battle.
“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed,” said Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, adding: “President Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before Election Day.”
Source: nytimes.com
