WASHINGTON — The House Jan. 6 select committee issued a subpoena Friday to former President Donald Trump, ordering him to produce documents by Nov. 4 and appear for a deposition under oath by Nov. 14.
Committee members voted unanimously at their last hearings Oct. 13 to subpoena the former president as part of its investigation into what led to the insurrection. The subpoena was delivered to his lawyers Friday.
“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multipart effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power,” the letter states.
Over months of hearings, the committee has argued that blame for the insurrection should be placed squarely on Trump’s efforts to stay in power despite knowing he’d lost the election.
“In short, you were at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. president to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself,” the letter states.
The committee’s letter instructs Trump to produce a variety of documents including messages sent by Trump or that Trump ordered to be sent Jan. 6; all communications or notes from conversations he had with members of Congress between Election Day and Jan. 6; and notes or memos about the presidential election, the scheme to have fake electors submit false election certificates and the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. Some of the requests cover the period between the election and the Capitol riot, and others reach back to September 2020 before the election.
The panel repeatedly asks Trump to produce communications that occurred on the Signal messaging application, including communications about his campaign’s election lawsuits, then-Vice President Mike Pence’s role on Jan. 6, about the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys and communications with members of Congress about contesting certification of the election.
The letter also broadly asks for all communications or memos about messages with key outside players in the committee’s investigation, such as former Trump advisers Stephen K. Bannon, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, and with attorneys including Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Trump has not said whether he will provide documents and testimony as required, but he is expected to challenge the subpoena.
With just over two months left before the committee is set to disband, any fighting over logistics around Trump’s possible appearance means a diminishing chance that the public might hear firsthand from the former president as part of the committee’s final report.
