Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona is the latest House Republican to formally object to being subpoenaed to testify before a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
“I have major concerns regarding the illegitimate Jan. 6 Committee’s subpoena deposition request,” Biggs tweeted Sunday. He attached a letter from two lawyers detailing his objections.
The letter to panel chairman Bennie Thompson, dated May 25, echoes some assertions by GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, two of four other House Republicans who have been subpoenaed. Biggs similarly demands responses from the committee without flat-out rejecting cooperation.
Biggs’s challenges include that the panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans isn’t validly constituted because the House resolution creating it specifically requires 13 members, not nine, and because Speaker Nancy Pelosi picked all of its members. She did that after blocking two of McCarthy’s picks, and he responded by pulling his remaining choices.
“This is not a captious carping on technicalities,” lawyers Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile say in the letter. “The Committee’s composition bears directly on the constitutional legitimacy of its ostensible investigation and the lawfulness of its use of compulsory process.”
The lawyers also accuse the panel of overreach, including its efforts to inquire into any alleged “effort by certain House Republicans after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon.”
Along with McCarthy, Jordan and Biggs, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania has questioned the legitimacy of the committee, depicting it as a “kangaroo court.” House Republican Mo Brooks has been subpoenaed to testify on May 31 and his office hasn’t said whether he’ll comply.
A committee spokesman, Tim Mulvey, declined to comment on Sunday. He referred to a statement he issued Friday that said courts have upheld the committee’s validity, that refusing to cooperate with subpoenas is “an assault on the rule of law,” and that Thompson will have more to say about Republican refusals to comply this week.
