Politico reports, Arizona GOP Chair pleaded the Fifth, Jan. 6 committee attorney says:
Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions from the Jan. 6 select committee, a lawyer for the panel revealed in federal court Tuesday.
“Dr. Ward was deposed by the select committee, and she declined to answer on every substantive question and asserted her rights under the Fifth Amendment,” select committee attorney Eric Columbus said during a court hearing before Arizona-based U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa. Columbus did not say when Ward’s deposition took place, though the select panel’s subpoena instructed her to appear on March 8, 2022.
Columbus revealed Ward’s posture during a hearing on the committee’s attempt to obtain her phone records from cell phone carrier T-Mobile. Ward sued the panel to block T-Mobile from cooperating, but Humetewa recently rejected her effort. Tuesday’s hearing came amid Ward’s effort to ask Humetewa to delay the impact of her ruling while she seeks a review from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
An attorney for Ward declined to comment.
Ward is seeking to block the select committee from obtaining records of her calls between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021 — the frenetic final weeks of former President Donald Trump’s term in office as he sought to cling to power. Columbus noted that the panel had received similar records from “hundreds” of other witnesses without incident.
But Ward, a medical doctor, has claimed that the select committee could use the records to identify patients she’s treating for sensitive conditions and also seek to chill Republican activists who had been in touch with her during that tumultuous time.
Ward attorney Laurin Mills told Humetewa that the select committee’s probe could wind up being “worse than the capitol riot” if its work led to the “criminalization of politics.” [Is that what the kids are calling a coup d’état these days?] Humetewa quickly admonished Mills, noting that the select committee has no criminal authority but is pursuing legislative goals. Mills responded by noting the Justice Department’s “parallel investigation” into efforts by allies of Trump to subvert the 2020 election. It’s not entirely surprising some witnesses would choose to avoid testifying to the select panel given the DOJ’s investigation, which the department revealed in January 2022.
Columbus noted that the select committee had no intention to obtain the substance of any texts or calls Ward made during that period — only logs of incoming and outgoing calls and phone numbers, which the panel could then use to determine when key contacts related to the 2020 election occurred.
“There is nothing unique about Dr. Ward here,” Columbus said, adding that it’s unsurprising the panel’s probe touched on political players because it’s an “investigation of a very political event, an attempt to overthrow and subvert an election.”
Humetewa pressed Columbus about why the committee is only now pressing for Ward’s records, after deferring for months. Columbus said the panel had opted to prioritize its resources and timing on other areas of the investigation first.
The select committee subpoenaed Ward in February, seeking her testimony and records about her involvement in Trump’s effort to remain in power. Ward helped assemble a slate of GOP activists to falsely claim to be the state’s certified presidential electors, even though Joe Biden prevailed narrowly in the November 2020 election there. Prosecutors are investigating the effort to send false elector slates to Washington, which was a key element of Trump’s effort to stoke a conflict on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress met to count electoral votes and certify Biden’s victory.
The select committee has subpoenaed dozens of Republicans who acted as Trump’s electors in states where Biden was the certified winner. It’s unclear how many have cooperated with the panel’s inquiry.
[In] addition to her work on the pro-Trump Arizona elector slate — in which she was one of 10 members — Ward joined a December 2020 lawsuit aimed at forcing then-Vice President Mike Pence’s hand ahead of the Jan. 6 session of Congress, when Pence was set to preside over the electoral vote count.
Ward and her fellow false electors have been subpoenaed in the ongoing Justice Department investigation. But Ward indicated in a court filing last week that all 10 of Arizona’s electors challenged the subpoenas and have not heard back from the Justice Department about their objections. DOJ has taken no steps to enforce the subpoenas as well, she noted.
Give it time, the DOJ will respond. There are bigger fish than you to fry.
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Ward was so proud of her coup efforts, she should own her words. She should stand up proudly and say she was saving democracy for her Putin-Kim loving hero, and not hide behind the 5th. Just to be clear, Biden did not invade an independent country, Mr. John Chamberlain.
John Kavanah doesn’t think things through.
If Putin can invade a country and threaten to use nuclear weapons and everyone just says “oh well, nothing we can do” then Putin wins, every time.
And he’s made it clear for decades that he wants to rebuild the Soviet Union.
Meaning John Kavanagh is supporting the USSR and a return to Communism. Because again, he doesn’t Think Things Through.
JKDTTT.
He just repeats whatever he hears on Fox.
This may be the first military conflict I am able to support since WW2. We can’t let one tiny little man decide the fate of the rest of the world.
We do need to ensure this doesn’t become a money maker for the military industrial complex, it can’t be a long dragged out conflict filling their shareholders bank accounts.
Fun fact to share with the GOP/Pravda party, those billions we’re “sending” to Ukraine? It’s actually US made weapons we’re sending that cost billions.
So, American jobs.
Which raises questions about Capitalism and war. We can talk about that after Putin is sleeping in the dirt.
I love the way all of you just make things up.
Which statements of fact, which aren’t yours, are false?
Please be specific
He can’t tell when he’s being mocked.
He really is that much of a dumbass.
Maybe he thinks that any mockery of him must be made up.
Still a dumbass, though.
As expected. nada.
Should be on auto-reply for any comment you make here, Johnny the Blog Jester. Too bad the blog doesn’t have such a feature.
President Biden has bumbled his way into the most serious international crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s and this is all you can talk about?
Dear Rep. Kavanagh: Maybe Vlad got so used to Cheeto’s knee pad diplomacy that now that he’s no longer receiving it, he’s threatening nuclear war.
Sounds to me like Republicans are worried that their hero Vlad is going to be defeated in Ukraine by U.S. and NATO assistance, and eventually overthrown in a coup, the one thing that Russians excel at. I look forward to Alexei Navalny being released from prison and restoring the democratization effort in Russia. And I look forward to democracy being restored in America when pro-Putin MAGA/QAnon Republicans are eventually driven out of office for being treasonous traitors.
John Kavanagh gets caught lying on this site all the time, doesn’t know the Constitution, and is regularly shown by the commenters and lawyers that he is definitely not a lawyer now wants to weigh in on international issues.
Go back to Jersey.
But on the way, please donate to RaicesTexasDotOrg. Raices provide free or low cost legal help to immigrants.
Donate in Honor of Arizona Rep John Kavanagh, who can’t donate himself because he’s hiding under his blanky after watching Tucker tell him to be ascared, be very ascared!
He may be worried about how many times his phone number shows up in “Chemtrails Kelli” Ward’s phone records. Wouldn’t that be fun.
Well, as we see here John Kavanagh likes to blame others (Biden) for bad things other people (Putin) do.
So his number turning up in Ward’s phone records would be fun!
Because who will the little Jersey-weasel blame if he’s involved in Chem-Trail-Gate-a-Lago!
Antifa? BLM? FBI? Soros? Pelosi? The Deep State? China? Italian Satellites? Government controlled tornados? Woke-ism? Van Jones? Hunter Biden? Transgender M&Ms? Some bad clams? The Designated Hitter Rule?
Sharpies!?
Funny, isn’t it, the party that likes to call people beta’s and cuck’s and talks about who’s a big tough guy and who’s not has someone like John Kavanagh getting all scared of five foot two inch Putin and demanding the USA back down.
Biden is looking Putin in the eye and not backing down and Kavanagh thinks we should run.
America backs her allies, John, these colors don’t run, remember?
Under President Biden Velma from the Scooby Doo cartoon has come out as lesbian and this is all you can talk about?
Under President Biden Matt Walsh says we don’t have enough pregnant teens and this is all you can talk about? Get Roy Moore on it now! Where is Matt Gaetz?
Under President Biden purple trans M&Ms are coming over the US border in caravans is all you can talk about?
Under President Biden only dudes are signing up for conservative dating app The Right Stuff there’s no chicks at all and this is all you can talk about?
Under President Biden Tucker Carlson has discovered that tanning your testicles will restore America to Greatness and this is all you can talk about? Suns out buns out boys!
(I hope Kavanagh isn’t participating in the ball tanning, the imagery is unsettling).
No, Putin did that when attacked another sovereign nation without any provocation. We will not, and must not, stand immobile when fellow democracies are attacked by fascist dictators. Never again, Johnny the Blog Jester. Never again.