House Jan. 6 Committee Votes to Subpoena Trump

The House January 6 Committee voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump in its final public hearing before the midterm elections.

Summary

The House January 6 Committee voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump in its final public hearing before the midterm elections.

• The committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, all supported the subpoena. Under federal law, failure to comply with a congressional subpoena is a misdemeanor punishable by 1-12 months’ imprisonment.
• Before voting, the committee aired never-before-seen-footage of congressional leader reacting angrily to the mob and trying to get law enforcement reinforcements while the Capitol was under siege by Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6 and Trump did little to stop the violence.
• The committee did not make a criminal referral of Donald Trump to the Justice Department at the hearing, a move several members of the committee encouraged.
• The former president submitted a 14-page letter in response to the committee vote rehashing the same dubious and unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 elections Trump has made over the last 18 months since the Capitol riot.
• Shortly after the committee vote, the Supreme Court denied Trump’s request to intervene in the separate legal battle over the classified documents seized by the Justice Department from his Mar-a-Lago home.

• CNN argued the Jan. 6 committee subpoena wasn’t even Trump’s worst legal news of the day. Instead, the Supreme Court’s rebuke of Trump’s request for intervention and reports of Trump employees telling the FBI they moved boxes at Trump’s instruction leave him are more legally perilous developments.
• The New York Times covered the committee’s pre-vote business and video footage in more detail and noted the hearings came just weeks before Republicans are favored to retake the House of Representatives. Republicans are likely to disband the panel should they take the majority.
• The Washington Post wrote the hearing and the vote “aimed to bolster a conclusion that members have hammered again and again: that the violence on Jan. 6 was the direct and predictable result of Trump’s choices in the weeks after he lost his bid for reelection.”

• Fox News shared a video from the committee hearing of Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatening to ‘punch out’ Trump had he joined the riot at the Capitol. “I hope he comes, I’m going to punch him out… I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy,” the speaker said.
• National Review’s Charlie Cooke thinks “it’s no mystery why January 6 isn’t a prominent midterm issue.” Cooke wrote, “With inflation through the roof and the economy on the brink of recession, voters have more important things to worry about than relitigating 2020.”
• The Wall Street Journal editorial board argued the committee has largely succeeded in its mission whether Trump testifies or not. “The Jan. 6 committee probably won’t get Mr. Trump under oath, but the evidence of his bad behavior is now so convincing that political accountability hardly requires it.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2022