LANSING, Mich. — Former Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox revealed Tuesday that investigators for the U.S. House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection had subpoenaed her phone records and traveled to Livonia to interview her.
Cox released the details hours after the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol announced it was subpoenaing her and five others to provide documents and appear for a deposition.
The former chairwoman's comments show a portion of the work the committee's investigators have been quietly doing in Michigan, where supporters of former President Donald Trump pushed to reverse Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the weeks after the 2020 election.
In December, The Detroit News first reported that the Democrat-led committee had contacted at least five officials in Michigan, including three Republicans. The panel has been probing a false electors certificate that 16 Trump supporters signed claiming he won the state and efforts to recruit poll challengers to come to the former TCF Center, where Detroit's absentee ballots were counted, in the days after the election.
Cox, a former state representative, was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party when the so-called "alternate" electors met in party headquarters to sign the certificate. In her statement Tuesday, she said the new subpoena was "about intimidation of free speech, not about investigating crimes." Her concerns about the election were real, she said.
"My guy lost," Cox added. "President Biden won. But that does not make raising questions about irregularities a crime. The January 6th Committee knows I don't know anything about what happened on January 6th.
"Like most Americans I was shocked as I watched at home."
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, has previously said the panel is investigating both what happened at the U.S. Capitol and what came before those events, including "attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election."
On Jan. 28, the committee announced subpoenas had been issued to two of the Trump electors in Michigan: Kathy Berden, a Republican national committeewoman, and Mayra Rodriguez.
The committee's investigators have also sought information from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office and done an interview with Chris Thomas, a longtime election official who helped advise Detroit's operation in 2020.
In December, one key GOP officeholder, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, wouldn't say whether he had been approached by the committee.
Cox said Daniel George, senior investigative counsel for the committee, contacted her on Oct. 18. Cox agreed to talk to him because she "had nothing to hide" and realized "he had a job to do," she said. On Oct. 21, George and two colleagues arrived in Livonia, were Cox lives, for an interview, according to her statement.
"Because they were taking notes, I asked if they objected to me taping our conversation with my iPhone," Cox said. "I thought, what investigator could object to that. But they did. They then left the office."
Two months later, her telephone provider told her the committee had subpoenaed her cellphone records, she said.
"Because I used that phone to text family and friends, which sometimes involve intimate conversations, I retained an attorney solely to ask if my phone records could be screened for family calls, which is a common in both criminal and civil litigation," Cox said. "My lawyer told the committee I was willing to talk whenever requested but asked they reach out to him first."
Without reaching out to Cox's attorney, the committee publicly announced it was issuing a subpoena and wanted to depose her, the former chairwoman said.
According to a letter from Thompson to Cox on Tuesday, the committee wants her to produce certain documents by March 1 and appear for a deposition on March 8. The letter referenced comments made by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani when he traveled to Michigan on Dec. 2, 2020, for a Michigan House Oversight Committee hearing on the election.
"You reportedly were a witness when Rudy Giuliani pressured state lawmakers to disregard election results in Michigan and when he said that certifying the election results would be a 'criminal act,'" Thompson's letter said.
Cox said she hosted a public Zoom event with Giuliani on Dec. 2, 2020, and "nothing was hidden."
"In fact, three days later, NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' did a viciously funny skit about that presentation," Cox said of Giuliani appearing at the House Oversight hearing. "So the January 6th (committee) needs to do a public pronouncement about something that is already in the public realm? That reeks of partisanship and PR stunts."
Ron Weiser, a University of Michigan board regent and longtime Republican donor, defeated Cox in a race to become the Michigan GOP's current chair in February 2021.
Cox's husband is Mike Cox, a former attorney general.
