The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas Tuesday to 10 Trump administration officials, including some of former president Donald Trump’s closest advisers who were in the White House that day.
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Those subpoenaed to provide testimony and documents include John McEntee, the former White House personnel director; Ben Williamson, a former deputy assistant to the president and senior adviser to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; and Nicholas Luna, the former president’s personal assistant.
Others close to the president who were subpoenaed include Molly Michael, the Oval Office operations coordinator to Trump.
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Michael still works for Trump and was in the White House for much of Jan. 6.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas to ten Trump administration officials on Nov. 9. (Reuters)
McEntee, according to the committee’s statement, was “in the White House on January 6th and was with former President Trump when he traveled to the Ellipse and spoke at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.”
THE ATTACK: The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event.
McEntee was a key figure in hiring of Trump loyalists across the government during the final stretch of Trump’s presidency.
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Luna was “reportedly in the Oval Office the morning of January 6, 2021, when former President Trump was on a phone call to Vice President Pence pressuring him not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election,” according to the committee.
The committee has sent out subpoenas in recent weeks to aides and allies of the former president as it tries to crack his inner circle as part of its investigation into the attack as well as the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
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It remains unclear how many people are cooperating with the probe and, if so, how much information they are providing. Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) has said the panel will aggressively go after anyone who tries to stonewall the investigation.
The House recently voted to hold former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress. But Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to announce whether his department will prosecute Bannon for failing to cooperate. Members of the select committee have said they view the Justice Department pursuing these charges as key to getting needed information and the department’s decision could impact whether other witnesses will cooperate with the congressional probe.
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Trump has repeatedly attacked the committee — which is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans — as a partisan witch hunt as he continues to spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
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“That’s right, the Committee is studying the PROTEST when it should be studying the Fraudulent Election that led to the protest,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
Also on the list of subpoenas that went out Tuesday was Kenneth Klukowski, senior counsel to former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who is also on the list because of his involvement “in drafting a letter that urged legislatures in certain states to delay certification of the election, according to the report recently released by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,” the committee said.
House Jan. 6 committee issues subpoenas to 6 top Trump advisers, including pair involved in Willard hotel ‘command center’
Trump loyalists and top advisers including Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, and Stephen Miller, the senior adviser to the former president, and Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant to Trump for legislative affairs, have also been asked to provide depositions and documents.
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McEnany pushed for a White House statement and comments from Trump during the attack and before he ultimately delivered them, according to several people familiar with the situation who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
Miller has continued to speak with Trump post-presidency and was even paid by the federal government for months after leaving office as part of Trump’s transition budget. He was involved in crafting almost every major Trump speech during the months leading up to Jan. 6.
Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, is also on the list. He was in the Oval Office and with Trump for much Jan. 6, angering Pence’s team, according to people familiar with the matter.