Update: House Select Committee On January 6 Subpoenas Trump Campaign Insiders

The Washington Post reports, House Jan. 6 committee issues subpoenas to 6 top Trump advisers, including pair involved in Willard hotel ‘command center’:

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued subpoenas Monday to six top advisers to President Donald Trump, including two who were active in the Willard hotel “war room” where Trump’s loyal backers oversaw efforts in January to overturn the 2020 election.

Those subpoenaed to provide testimony and documents include scholar [WaPo uses this term loosely] John Eastman, who outlined a legal strategy in early January to delay or deny Joe Biden the presidency [i.e., the “coup memos”], and former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who led efforts to investigate voting fraud in key states. Both were present at the Willard hotel during the first week in January.

The list also includes three members of the Trump reelection campaign: campaign manager Bill Stepien; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; and Angela McCallum, the national executive assistant to Trump’s campaign. The committee also issued a subpoena for Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell asked the obvious burning question on everyone’s mind: “Why hasn’t Rudy Giuliani been subpoenaed?”

Note: GQP ratfucker Roger Stone, newly pardoned by Donald Trump and founder of “Stop The Steal,” was also a guest at the Willard Hotel. Of course, Stone denies any knowledge of the “war room.” Seth Abramson has been reporting on this for months. “(WILLARD HOTEL WAR ROOM THREAD) Now that Congress has acknowledged the 8 months of reporting at PROOF on Trump’s pre-insurrection Willard Hotel “war room,” I’m creating a thread with links to every Willard report at PROOF.” And Roger Stone Keeps Lying About the Willard Hotel—and Now We Know Why: “So is there evidence that Stone met with Alex Jones at the Willard? Is there evidence that Stone met with Michael Flynn at the Willard? Is there evidence that Stone was in possession of, or acquired possession of, critical documentary evidence while he was staying at the Willard? The answer to all of these questions is “yes” (see below).”

All of them reportedly participated in discussions about challenging the election results, although Stepien, according to published reports, was initially skeptical of claims by some of Trump’s legal advisers, including his former personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Eastman has become a witness of keen interest to the committee because of the role he played laying out legal scenarios to deny Biden the presidency, including during an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

At the command center, Eastman huddled with Trump advisers including Giuliani, former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Kerik to develop plans to pressure Pence to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within the vice president’s powers. Those actions included blocking or delaying the counting of electoral votes from battleground states where results were in dispute.

Those states became the focus of the effort inside the Willard hotel command center to find evidence of fraud that might compel state legislators to challenge Biden’s victory.

In those first days in January, Trump allies in the command center called members of Republican-dominated legislatures in swing states that Eastman had spotlighted in his memos, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, encouraging them to convene special sessions to investigate fraud and to reassign electoral college votes from Biden to Trump.

Kerik said he had been working with Giuliani since two days after the election and that they continued until Jan. 19. “I believed until Inauguration Day that something could be done — that’s why the fight was still going on,” Kerik told The Washington Post in a recent interview.

Kerik and Giuliani stayed in Washington in early November at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, according to Kerik, and moved to the Willard at the end of December.

Eastman stayed at the Willard from Jan. 3 until after breakfast on Jan. 8, according to records showing that the hotel charged $1,407 for his lodging and meals during that time.

He arrived at the Willard on the same day that Trump organized an Oval Office meeting to discuss replacing then-acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey B. Clark, a Justice Department official close to Eastman who proposed that the department push for probes of Trump’s election fraud claims in Georgia and elsewhere. Rosen, other department officials and White House counsel Pat Cipollone all threatened to resign during the three-hour meeting if Clark were appointed.

The committee had earlier subpoenaed Clark, but he refused to answer questions in a closed-door interview on Friday. The committee also sought documents Eastman had prepared making the case that the vice president had authority under the constitution to delay or reject electoral results from key states.

Eastman’s first memo on the topic, only two pages long, described a six-point plan by which Pence could effectively commandeer the electoral counting process and enable Trump to win. The memo was first revealed last month in the book “Peril,” by Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Eastman has said that memo was a “preliminary draft” of a more complete and nuanced memo that outlined multiple possible outcomes following the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. The ideas in the memos were the basis for a discussion of options Pence had with Eastman and Trump in the Oval Office on Jan. 4, he has said.

However, Pence still resisted embracing Eastman’s plan. On the evening of Jan. 5, according to “Peril,” Trump called Giuliani and then Bannon, who were both at the Willard at the time, according to the book, which reported some details of the events at the Willard that day. Trump told Bannon that Pence had been “very arrogant” when the two discussed the matter earlier in the day, the book reported. The following day, Eastman spoke at the rally on the Ellipse.

Eastman did not respond to messages from The Post. But Kerik issued a fiery statement Monday evening rejecting suggestions in a committee press statement that he was “involved in efforts to promote false claims of election fraud.”

[In] its letter to Flynn, the committee asked specifically about Flynn’s attendance at a Dec. 18 meeting in the Oval Office “during which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message” that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud.

The letter noted that the previous day, Flynn had spoken with a Newsmax TV interviewer about seizing voting machines, foreign influence in the election and the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.

It asked Flynn for all documents and depositions related to these matters.

Miller was in touch with Trump on Jan. 6 at least twice, according to reporting by The Post, helping him draft a statement that evening. He was the spokesman for Trump during several key periods: before Nov. 3, through much of the transition, and then again after Jan. 6, during the impeachment.

Miller was also in touch with Giuliani and others in the war room about their efforts in the days leading up to Jan. 6, according to Post reporting. But he was not at the White House on the day of the attack, people familiar with the matter said.

When Trump issued a false statement saying Pence had the authority to block certification and claiming Pence agreed with Trump’s position, Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, called Miller to raise objections to the statement.

Miller also drafted tweets and shared them with the White House — that the president did not send — urging his supporters to leave the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6, The Post has reported. Miller was also involved in devising a poll that was designed to show Republican lawmakers they would face political repercussions if they voted to impeach Trump, and the poll was circulated.

Stepien, once an aide to former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R) and part of the 2016 Trump campaign, served as White House political director and then joined the 2020 campaign before being named campaign manager. A data guru, he had privately told others for months that Trump had difficult odds of winning.

Also on the list is Angela McCallum, a national executive assistant to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign who “reportedly participated in efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud in the November 2020 election and to encourage state legislatures to alter the outcome of the November 2020 election,” according to the transmittal of the subpoena issued by the committee.

“Specifically, there is a publicly available recording of a voice mail that Ms. McCallum reportedly left for an unknown Michigan state representative,” wrote Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee’s chairman. “In the recording, Ms. McCallum wanted to know whether the Trump campaign could ‘count on’ the representative and said that the individual had the authority to appoint an alternate slate of electors based on purported evidence of widespread election fraud.”

The committee requested that McCallum provide documents by Nov. 23 and appear for a deposition on Nov. 20.

The committee has already sought information from Bannon, who was the lead political strategist for the Willard operation. In seeking to compel testimony from Steve Bannon, the congressional panel investigating Jan. 6 cited his reported presence at the “ ‘war room’ organized at the Willard.” The former White House adviser has refused to cooperate with the panel, citing Trump’s [bogus assertion] of executive privilege.

In response to his defiance, the House voted last month to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress and referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

The DOJ is dragging its feet on convening a grand jury. CNN reports, DOJ officials unfazed by calls to expedite Bannon contempt decision:

To many in Washington, the criminal contempt case against Steve Bannon appears cut and dried: The podcaster and former Trump adviser has openly spurned a congressional subpoena to testify in an investigation into the January 6 US Capitol attack, claiming to be covered by executive privilege even though he wasn’t a government employee at the time.

But the longer it takes for the Justice Department to make a decision on whether to prosecute Bannon, the more questions swirl around whether this was the right strategy for congressional investigators. Democratic critics, already frustrated with Attorney General Merrick Garland over other moves, have focused their impatience over the Bannon referral on Garland because he has ultimate say on whether Bannon is prosecuted.

It’s been more than two weeks since the House voted to refer Bannon’s case to the Justice Department. Since then, Garland has said little publicly about the status of Bannon’s referral[.]

While Justice officials say they expected criticism over the delay in making a decision on the Bannon criminal referral, Garland has established a methodical approach to making decisions, aware that the department will be criticized no matter which way it goes.

Justice Department officials tell CNN that prosecutors don’t feel pressure to act more quickly. Given that criminal referrals are rare and even more rarely enforced by the department, the Bannon decision will be dissected for years to come so the lawyers have to be sure they get it right, officials say.

The referral also came amid a transition at the Washington, DC, US Attorney’s Office, which is handling the matter. The Senate approved the new US attorney, Matthew Graves, on October 28 and he took office Friday.

At Justice, the two weeks it has taken to review the referral isn’t seen as consequential, officials say.

Still, members of the House select committee that’s investigating the Capitol riot believe a quick indictment of Bannon is needed — not only to send a message to other potential witnesses but also to reaffirm the power of the congressional subpoena.

Another Contempt of Congress Referral is Pending

On Friday, former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who had been subpoenaed, appeared before the committee for more than an hour but declined to answer questions. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, warned Clark that he has a “short time” to reconsider and cooperate or risk facing “strong measures,” which could include being held in criminal contempt.

This recalls the Trump era, when numerous administration officials defied congressional subpoenas.
“They have obviously got their process. They’ve got to run their traps on all of the guidelines for deciding on a criminal prosecution in a case like that,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who’s a member of the select committee, told CNN last week when asked if he believes the Justice Department is dragging its feet on Bannon.

“We think it’s an open-and-shut case,” he added.

But there is also concern that any delay undercuts the pressure that the House select committee can bring on reluctant Trump allies to testify.

“Any perception that the rule of law does not apply is a harmful one,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who serves on the panel, told CNN on Friday when asked at what point the committee will become concerned that the Justice Department is not proceeding expeditiously.

A significant delay in a Bannon indictment could also complicate the committee’s ability to finish its investigation by early next year. Democrats face the daunting prospect of potentially losing the House in 2022, which would certainly mean an end for the committee and its work, meaning every day is precious.

That sense of urgency has been reflected in the investigation’s pace. The committee has proceeded with its probe while it waits for the Justice Department to rule on Bannon’s referral. It’s interviewed 150 people so far and is expected to send at least 20 more subpoenas in the coming days.

But with the Bannon decision in limbo, much of the committee’s work hangs in the balance, most notably its ability to compel cooperation from Trump allies who so far have remained elusive.

“We’re moving forward as quickly as we can as a committee. We can’t speak for … the Department of Justice,” Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, a committee member, told CNN this week.

The committee remains largely in the dark as to why the Justice Department is not doing the same.

* * *

Some Democrats, while trying to show support for Garland’s efforts to divorce the Justice Department from politics, are nonetheless nudging him about their expectations.

“It is not enough just to right the ship,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who’s the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told the attorney general at a hearing recently. “As the chief law enforcement officer of our nation, it is also your responsibility to help the country understand and reckon with the violence and the lawlessness of the last administration.”