The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building has formally withdrawn a number of subpoenas it had issued late in its work, including one for former President Donald Trump.
The subpoena for Trump, which was issued in October, had requested that he testify before the committee and hand over documents and communications relating to the Capitol attack. The subpoena also asked for documents relating to his and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden.
Trump had actually teased the idea of adhering to the subpoena order under certain circumstances, against the advice of his legal advisers. Ultimately, however, Trump’s lawyers sued the committee to block the subpoena’s enforcement.
In a letter to Trump lawyer David Warrington, January 6 committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) explained that the committee was withdrawing the subpoena due to time constraints, as Republicans will likely dissolve the committee when they take control of the House next week.
“In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena,” Thompson wrote.
In spite of that explanation, Trump celebrated the outcome on his Truth Social account, falsely claiming that the subpoena withdrawal was an admission by committee members that he “did nothing wrong.”
Last week, the committee unanimously voted in favor of recommending charges against Trump to the Department of Justice (DOJ), based on findings over the course of its work. The panel has recommended charges against Trump for inciting an insurrection, conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to cause others to make false statements relating to the committee’s inquiry, and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress.
While the DOJ isn’t obligated to abide by these recommendations, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), a member of the January 6 committee, said he’d be “surprised” if they didn’t charge Trump based on the evidence.
“There’s just deep culpability from the very beginning in everything that Donald Trump did” regarding the Capitol attack and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Raskin said in an interview this past weekend.
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