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Lawmakers investigating the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack subpoenaed former President Donald Trump on Friday to testify about his involvement in the violence, a major escalation in their sprawling investigation.
The subpoena comes after a House panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans voted unanimously last week to force Trump to appear before investigators.
It required the 76-year-old Republican to produce documents by Nov. 4 and to begin testifying on or about Nov. 14, the Monday after the key midterm elections on Nov. 8.
“As our hearings attest, we have gathered overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally planned and oversaw the overthrow of the 2020 presidential election and obstruction of power for peace. A multifaceted effort to transition,” the committee told Trump in a letter.
Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” in a fiery speech near the White House Jan. 6, 2021, after he incited a mob to storm Congress later in the day to prevent peace to Joe Biden Impeached for the transfer of power.
The letter accuses Trump of trying to overturn the election despite knowing that fraud allegations have been overwhelmingly rejected by more than 60 courts and refuted by his campaign and top advisers.
“In short, you were at the center of the first and only time a President of the United States overturned an election and blocked a peaceful transition of power, culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and Congress itself,” it added.
Without confirming that Trump had received a subpoena, his attorney David Warrington said his team would “review and analyze” the document and “respond appropriately to this unprecedented action.”
Biden weighed in on the matter in an interview with MSNBC late Friday, saying it “makes sense” for Trump to comply with the subpoena.
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The panel’s subpoena proved difficult to enforce, and former White House aide Steve Bannon was the only target convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply.
Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison on Friday, but he remains on bail pending an appeal.
Trump, notorious for his ability to stall congressional investigations and legal action, remains unlikely to agree to give evidence.
In any case, the subpoenas will expire during the new congressional term in January. Republicans are expected to win back the House of Representatives in the November election and plan to end the investigation immediately.
But the move marks an aggressive escalation of the investigation, which has issued more than 100 subpoenas and interviewed more than 1,000 people since it launched in 2021.
While no sitting president has been forced to testify before Congress, lawmakers have called several former presidents to discuss their conduct in office.
Trump’s compliance would mean sworn testimony and could be charged with perjury if he lied.
If he refuses to comply, the House could hold him in criminal contempt when it votes to recommend that he be prosecuted, as it did with Bannon.
– “clear and present” danger –
The panel released a trove of evidence at eight summer hearings about the former president’s involvement in a complex, linked scheme to overturn the 2020 election.
Witness testimony provided striking examples of Trump and his allies pressuring election officials and trying to invalidate legal votes in swing states, as well as Trump’s inertia in mob uprisings.
The committee also stressed its position that Trump — who remains the source of disinformation about the 2020 presidential election — remains a “clear and current” threat to democracy.
Lawmakers plan to release a final report by the end of the year.
The committee has yet to announce whether it will make direct criminal referrals over the Capitol attack, though the move is little more than a gesture as the Justice Department is already investigating.
The list of records Trump is required to produce includes all his communications on the day of the riots, as well as various messages from the weeks leading up to the riots.
Investigators singled out Signal, suggesting that the committee had determined that Trump used an encrypted communications app while participating in the conspiracy.
The software allows users to automatically delete messages for any period of time they choose.
The requested documents include any signal communications between Trump and far-right militias such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
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