While the former president has suggested he might testify live before the committee, it was far more likely that the demand would lead to a protracted legal battle over whether he could be compelled to cooperate.
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Former President Donald J. Trump in Mesa, Ariz., last week. He released a lengthy, rambling letter that attacked the Jan. 6 committee’s work and reiterated false claims of widespread voting fraud but did not address whether he would comply with a subpoena.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued a subpoena on Friday to Donald J. Trump, taking its most aggressive step yet and paving the way for a potentially historic court fight over whether a former president can be compelled to answer questions before a legislative panel looking into matters related to a continuing criminal investigation.
The subpoena drastically escalated the stakes of what was already the most consequential congressional investigation in decades. Coming weeks before the midterm elections, the subpoena threatened to thrust Mr. Trump and the Jan. 6 committee into a protracted legal battle that could ultimately be decided by the United States Supreme Court.
The subpoena to Mr. Trump requires him to turn over documents by Nov. 4 and to appear for a deposition on Nov. 14.
Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chairwoman, said this week that if Mr. Trump refused to comply, the lawmakers would “take the steps we need to take after that,” although it was unclear how successful their enforcement efforts would be, particularly if Republicans take control of the House in January and disband the committee.
The panel voted unanimously last week to issue a subpoena to Mr. Trump, and staff members worked for several days preparing the demand. Committee lawyers were in contact with representatives for the former president, inquiring about which of Mr. Trump’s many lawyers would be willing to accept service of the subpoena.
After much internal discussion, Mr. Trump’s team tasked the Dhillon Law Group, which has represented several witnesses before the Jan. 6 committee, to handle the matter, according to a person familiar with the decision.
The former president last week released a lengthy, rambling letter that attacked the committee’s work and reiterated false claims of widespread voting fraud but did not address whether he would comply with the subpoena.
Mr. Trump has indicated privately to aides that he would be willing to testify to the House panel, but only if he could do so live, according to a person close to him. Committee and staff members have suggested that they are open to the idea, believing the panel could most likely elicit some significant disclosures from the former president’s testimony.
Mr. Trump could put himself in legal jeopardy if he testifies. He has a penchant for stating falsehoods, and it is a federal felony to do so before Congress. It was revealed by a federal judge on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had signed a document swearing under oath that information in a Georgia lawsuit he filed challenging the results of the 2020 election was true, even though his own legal team made him aware it was false.
There are risks for the committee as well. Mr. Trump’s letter last week was the latest reminder that he would be likely to use any unfettered opportunity for live, public testimony to continue to perpetuate the same lies about the 2020 election that fueled the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021; and there is no guarantee that he would answer any substantive questions.
In addition, it was unclear whether such an appearance would take place. Legal experts doubted that any lawyer representing the former president would allow him to testify. And despite repeatedly claiming in public that he would, Mr. Trump did not testify during either of his two impeachment trials, nor did he sit down with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who was investigating whether he obstructed justice and his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. Trump ultimately provided Mr. Mueller with written answers in response to his questions.
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After interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and obtaining millions of pages of documents, the Jan. 6 committee has presented a sweeping summation of its case placing Mr. Trump at the center of a calculated, multipart effort to overturn the vote that began even before Election Day.
Despite losing the election, Mr. Trump ignored the facts and aggressively sought to subvert the results, pressuring state officials, strong-arming Justice Department leaders and seeking to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won, according to evidence presented by the committee. Then, with his hold on power slipping, Mr. Trump called a crowd of his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, mobilizing far-right extremists, and told them to march on the Capitol. As hundreds of people stormed the building, assaulting police officers and disrupting the certification of the election, Mr. Trump did nothing for hours to stop the violence, the committee has shown.
Mr. Trump and his allies are the focus of several criminal investigations, including into the events that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The Justice Department is conducting its own sprawling inquiry into the roles Mr. Trump and some of his allies played in seeking to subvert the 2020 election. In addition, Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
The committee has at times acted aggressively to enforce its subpoenas. The House has voted four times to hold in contempt of Congress allies of Mr. Trump who refused to testify or supply documents. Two of those allies — Stephen K. Bannon, an outside adviser who briefly worked in the Trump White House, and Peter Navarro, the former White House trade adviser — were indicted. The Justice Department declined to charge two others: Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, and Dan Scavino Jr., another top aide.
Mr. Bannon has been convicted and was sentenced on Friday to four months in jail and a fine of $6,500. Mr. Navarro’s trial is scheduled for next month.
Contempt of Congress carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $100,000.
There is no Supreme Court precedent that says whether Congress has the power to compel a former president to testify about his actions in office. Former presidents have responded in a variety of ways to requests — or demands — from Congress.
Several voluntarily testified before Congress, including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman and Gerald R. Ford.
When Mr. Roosevelt testified in 1911, he made clear his view that it was the duty of a former president to comply with a request from Congress, saying: “An ex-president is merely a citizen of the United States, like any other citizen, and it is his plain duty to try to help this committee or respond to its invitation.”
At least three former presidents have been issued congressional subpoenas. In 1846, John Tyler testified, and John Quincy Adams submitted a deposition. But in 1953, Mr. Truman refused to comply with a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee, citing precedents from George Washington and other presidents who also refused to provide Congress with certain documents.
“It must be obvious to you that if the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the presidency is to have any validity at all, it must be equally applicable to a president after his term of office has expired,” Mr. Truman wrote.
But he later reached a different conclusion and testified before Congress multiple times after leaving office.
In 1998, Bill Clinton was issued a subpoena — though by an independent counsel, not a congressional committee — during the investigation into whether he had made false statements under oath about his extramarital affairs. Prosecutors agreed to drop the subpoena after Mr. Clinton agreed to an interview.
Luke Broadwater reported from Washington, and Michael S. Schmidt from New York. Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.
Source: nytimes.com
