Topline
The House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot on Thursday subpoenaed Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and four other House Republicans, asking them to testify at hearings in June—the first public subpoenas issued by the panel to members of Congress.
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at the U.S. Capitol July 1, 2021.
Key Facts
In addition to McCarthy, the committee asked for documents or testimony from Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Scott Perry (Pa.).
All five representatives had previously been asked to appear voluntarily: Jordan and Perry were asked to cooperate in December, McCarthy in January, and Biggs and Brooks on May 2.
The committee connected Biggs, Jordan and Perry to efforts to overturn former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss: Biggs allegedly tried to convince state officials the election was rigged, and Perry attempted to “corrupt” the Department of Justice by installing Jeffrey Clark—a department official open to claims of voter fraud—as acting attorney general.
Jordan and McCarthy were in contact with Trump on the day of the riot, and McCarthy claimed Trump had admitted in a private conversation after the Capitol riot that he was at least partially to blame for the incident, the committee said.
The committee noted Brooks addressed a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House immediately preceding the Capitol riot, urging the crowd to “start taking down names and kicking ass,” and later claimed Trump had asked him to help reinstate Trump as president.
The committee also said it had evidence Brooks’s staff told members of then-Vice President Mike Pence’s staff prior to January 6 that the vice president can’t refuse to count certified electoral votes, undermining a plan by some Trump allies to have Pence declare Trump the election winner even though President Joe Biden won a majority of electors.
Contra
On Twitter, Biggs and Perry dismissed the subpoenas as political theater, but did not indicate whether they intended to appear before the committee.
Key Background
Some Trump allies have cooperated with the committee, while others have put up varying degrees of resistance. Last month, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner voluntarily appeared before the committee, a decision that Thompson said had “obviously significant value.” Some former Trump officials appeared before the committee under subpoena but were less forthcoming, such as former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who reportedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify 146 times while answering questions. Others have attempted to resist the committee’s subpoenas altogether: Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was charged with contempt of Congress after unsuccessfully arguing former President Trump’s executive privilege prohibited him from testifying. April 6, the House voted to recommend contempt charges against former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro and former communications staffer Daniel Scavino Jr. after they refused to comply with the committee’s subpoenas and cited Trump’s executive privilege.
Tangent
Former presidents can sometimes invoke executive privilege, a doctrine allowing the president to withhold information from the public in defense of the public interest. However, the Supreme Court and other judicial authorities have rejected Trump’s attempts to use executive privilege to hold back White House records from the committee, finding that Joe Biden’s privilege as the current president outweighs Trump’s privilege as a former president in these instances.
Further Reading
“Biden Reportedly Tells National Archives To Give 8th Batch Of Trump Records To Jan. 6 Panel” (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/05/12/jan-6-committee-subpoenas-five-gop-lawmakers-including-kevin-mccarthy/