No More Effin’ Around: January 6 Committee Subpoenas 5 GQP Congressional Coup Plotters

The New York Times reports, Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas 5 Republican Representatives:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas on Thursday to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who had refused to meet with the panel voluntarily.

If they did nothing wrong, why won’t they voluntarily give an interview to the January 6 Committee as more than a thousand other witness hav already done? What do they have to hide? What are they covering up?

The committee’s leaders had been reluctant to issue subpoenas to their fellow lawmakers. That is an extraordinarily rare step for most congressional panels to take, though the House Ethics Committee, which is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, is known to do so.

The panel said it was demanding documents and testimony from Kevin McCarthy, of California, who engaged in a heated phone call with President Donald J. Trump during the Capitol violence; Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who coordinated a plan to try to replace the acting attorney general after he resisted Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud; Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was deeply involved in the effort to fight the election results; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former leader of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus; and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has said Mr. Trump has continued to seek an unlawful reinstatement to office for more than a year.

Note: All five have been implicated in Trump’s Coup Plots prior to January 6, all pushed lawyers John Eastman’s and Jenna Ellis’ Coup Plot memos to members of Congress and state legislatures, and all likely knew of the potential for a violent insurrection on January 6 as the last resort of Trump’s attempted coup. All voted not to certify the electoral college vote even after the violent MAGA/QAnon insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6, thus giving aid and comfort to the violent insurrectionists. All voted against establishing the January 6 Committee to aid in covering up their crimes, and all have obstructed Congress and obstructed justice by refusing to cooperate with the January 6 Committee.

All five have refused requests for voluntary interviews about the roles they played in the buildup to the attack by supporters of the former president who believed his lie of widespread election fraud.

The subpoenas come as the committee is ramping up for a series of public hearings in June to reveal its findings. The eight hearings are scheduled to take place over several weeks beginning on June 9, some during prime time in an effort to attract a large television audience.

“The select committee has learned that several of our colleagues have information relevant to our investigation into the attack on Jan. 6 and the events leading up to it,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily. Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused, and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning Jan. 6.”

For weeks, members and investigators on the special House panel have privately agonized over how aggressively to pursue sitting members of Congress, weighing their desire for information about lawmakers’ direct interactions with Mr. Trump against the potential legal difficulty and political consequences of doing so.

Behind closed doors, committee and staff members researched the law, parliamentary rules and past precedents before deciding to proceed, people familiar with the inquiry said.

In letters to the lawmakers sent on Thursday, Mr. Thompson wrote that their refusal to cooperate had left the panel with “no choice” but to issue subpoenas.

The subpoena to Mr. McCarthy is particularly noteworthy because he is in line to become speaker if Republicans win control of the House this November. Should he refuse to comply, it could set in motion a process that could lead to a Democratic-controlled House holding him in contempt of Congress as the midterm elections loom.

Congressional investigators have rarely confronted a situation that carries such hefty stakes for their institution.

Mr. McCarthy has long feared being subpoenaed in the investigation. In recent months, he has been in discussions with William A. Burck, a longtime Washington lawyer, about how to fight a subpoena.

The committee wants to question Mr. McCarthy about conversations he had after the attack about the president’s culpability in the assault and what should be done to address it. The committee has also suggested that Mr. Trump may have influenced Mr. McCarthy’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation. [Witness tampering, obstruction of Congress.]

Mr. McCarthy issued a blistering statement in January condemning the committee as illegitimate and saying he would refuse to cooperate with its inquiry. He has argued that the panel was violating the privacy of Republicans through subpoenas for bank and phone records. Mr. McCarthy also denounced Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California for having rejected two of his five choices to sit on the panel — one of whom was Mr. Jordan.

The committee informed Mr. Jordan in December by letter that its investigators wanted to question him about his communications related to the run-up to the Capitol riot. Those include Mr. Jordan’s messages with Mr. Trump and his legal team as well as others involved in planning rallies on Jan. 6 and congressional objections to certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Mr. Perry, a member of Congress since 2013 who is close to Mr. Jordan, compiled a dossier of voter fraud allegations and coordinated a plan to try to replace the acting attorney general, who was resisting Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, with a more compliant official. Mr. Perry also endorsed the idea of encouraging Mr. Trump’s supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a letter to Mr. Biggs, the committee’s leaders wrote that they wanted to question him about evidence they had obtained on efforts by certain House Republicans to seek a presidential pardon after Jan. 6 in connection with Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

And the panel said it wanted to question Mr. Brooks about statements he made in March claiming that Mr. Trump had asked him repeatedly in the months since the election to illegally “rescind” the results, remove President Biden and force a special election.

The so-called speech or debate clause of the Constitution, intended to protect the independence of the legislative branch, says that senators and representatives “shall not be questioned in any other place” about any speech or debate in either chamber. It has been broadly interpreted to cover all legislative actions, not just words. On its face, however, that clause is limited to questioning them in “other” places, like courtrooms.

There is also precedent for the House to subpoena its own members in a narrow context. The House Ethics Committee has authority under the chamber’s rules to subpoena members for testimony or documents, and members are required to comply.

The committee has also sought an interview with Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, Mr. Trump’s former White House doctor, about why he was mentioned in encrypted messages from the Oath Keepers militia group, some of whose members have been charged criminally in connection with the attack.

Mr. Jackson has also refused to voluntarily cooperate, but he was not among those issued a subpoena on Thursday.

The Hill adds, Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas to five GOP lawmakers (excerpt):

GOP members could try to challenge the subpoenas with lawsuits, as at least a dozen other potential witnesses have done, raising the possibility that the partisan battle over the select committee’s work will spill into court.

So far, federal courts have largely upheld the panel’s investigative demands and its authority to issue subpoenas in the face of various legal challenges. But any legal challenge from the GOP lawmakers is sure to be tied up in court for months as the panel races to complete its work ahead this year’s midterm elections.

The panel said the group of lawmakers issued subpoenas include members who took part in meetings at the White House, had conversations with then-President Trump in the lead-up to the Capitol attack and were involved.

[In] a statement announcing the subpoenas, the committee said McCarthy was in communication with Trump and White House staffers before, during and after the Capitol attack.

The panel also said McCarthy “claimed to have had a discussion with the President in the immediate aftermath of the attack during which President Trump admitted some culpability for the attack,” likely a reference to an interview the GOP leader did with a local California radio station in the days after the attack.

McCarthy told KERN on Jan. 12, 2021, “I say he has responsibility,” adding, “He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do,” according to CNN.

McCarthy told reporters on Thursday that he had not seen the subpoena and would not say if he will comply.

[T]he panel in its statement claimed that Perry “was directly involved” with efforts to install Department of Justice attorney Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, an undertaking that was reportedly considered to forward election fraud probes when other department officials refused to.

The committee also wrote that the Pennsylvania Republican communicated with the White House “about a number of matters relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation, including allegations that Dominion voting machines had been corrupted.”

[T]he panel said Jordan communicated with Trump on Jan. 6 and said he took part in meetings and conversations in late 2020 and early 2021 that focused on “strategies for overturning the 2020 election.”

Biggs, according to the committee’s statement, engaged in meetings regarding plans for Jan. 6 and had involvement in “plans to bring protestors to Washington for the counting of Electoral College votes.”

The group also said Biggs “was involved in efforts to persuade state officials that the 2020 was stolen.” Additionally, the panel said former White House personnel have indicated that Biggs was potentially involved with an effort to receive a presidential pardon for actions related to Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the presidential election.

The committee noted in its statement that Brooks spoke at the rally that preceded the Capitol riot and said he encouraged those in the crowd to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”

The panel also said Brooks has publicly spoken about conversations he had with Trump.

“Mr. Brooks has publicly described conversations in which the former President urged him to work to ‘rescind the election of 2020’ and reinstall Mr. Trump as President,” the committee wrote.

Additionally, the panel said it has evidence that members of Brooks’s staff met with staff working for then-Vice President Mike Pence prior to Jan. 6 where his team “conveyed the view that the Vice President does not have authority to unilaterally refuse to count certified electoral votes.”

[T]he committee has already spoken to almost a thousand individuals, according to The Associated Press, including those close to Trump [and his family members.]

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Thursday that the subpoenas are “not an escalation at all.”

“We ought to all be subject to being asked to tell the truth before a committee that is seeking information that is important to our country and to our democracy,” he said.

Asked if he is concerned that the subpoenas are putting his own members at risk of the same requests if the GOP takes the majority, Hoyer said “I have no problem being subpoenaed.”

“Personally, you know, I’ll tell the truth. If I have information they need, that’s fine. I do not understand this extraordinary reaction to pursuing a legal, appropriate process.”

If they refuse to comply with their subpoena, they must be held in contempt of Congress, and the House Ethics Committee should immediately begin proceedings against them. The DOJ must cease its dilatory actions and convene the grand jury to indict them for obstruction of Congress. Time is of the essence, and these criminals are just trying to run ot the clock on this investigation.

Americans can prevent them from running out the clock and covering up their crimes by electing Democrats to majorities in the House and Senate in November. Why in God’s name would anyone want to put these seditious insurrectionist Coup Plotters who tried to overthrow the government in charge of the government? That would be murdering democracy and voluntarily acceeding to GQP tyranny.