By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. congressional committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol issued subpoenas seeking documents and testimony from six associates of Republican former President Donald Trump, including top aides from his re-election campaign.
They are William Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign; Jason Miller, senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, an attorney for Trump; Michael Flynn, who was briefly Trump’s national security advisor, and Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives Select Committee wants those subpoenaed to sit for depositions scheduled for between Nov. 30 and Dec. 13.
The panel has now issued 25 subpoenas. It said more than 150 witnesses have testified to its investigators behind closed doors.
The subpoenas announced on Monday largely focus on Trump associates believed to have spent time at a “command center” at Washington’s historic Willard Hotel set up to steer efforts to deny Democrat Joe Biden his victory over Trump in the November 2020 election.
“In the days before the January 6th 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,” Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Select Committee, said in a statement.
“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,” Thompson said.
HUNDREDS OF ARRESTS
Miller declined to comment. The other Trump associates could not immediately be reached for comment or did not respond.
More than 670 people have been charged with taking part in the riot at the Capitol as Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were to certify Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election. It was the worst attack on the seat of the U.S. government since the War of 1812 and the only time power in the United States has not been transferred peacefully.
Trump has urged former aides to reject panel subpoenas, claiming the right to withhold information because of executive privilege, a legal principle that protects many White House communications.
Legal experts have disputed his claim that the principle applies.
Four people died the day of the assault, and one Capitol police officer died the next day of injuries sustained while defending Congress. Hundreds of police were injured during the multi-hour onslaught, and four officers have since taken their own lives.
The Select Committee was created by House Democrats against the wishes of most Republicans. Two of its nine members – Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – are Republicans who joined House Democrats in voting to impeach Trump in January on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 attack in a fiery speech to supporters earlier that day.
Multiple courts, state election officials and members of Trump’s own administration have rejected his claims that Biden won because of election fraud.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York and Jan Wolfe in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)
