The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, saying there is precedent for a former president to appear before the panel.
“This is a question about accountability to the American people,” committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said during the public hearing. “He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions. He is required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy. He is required to answer to the millions of Americans whose votes he wanted to throw out as part of his scheme to remain in power.”
Vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said the committee had “sufficient evidence” to answer many of the “critical questions” about the attack and to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department. But she said a “key task” remained: “We must seek the testimony under oath of Jan. 6’s central player.”
Several Trump allies have refused to comply with subpoenas, including top Trump aides Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, who were charged with contempt of Congress. Bannon was convicted and is expected to be sentenced later this month.
Thursday’s hearing, the ninth and likely final one, recapped much of what the committee has learned so far about the attack.
The committee showed video testimony from those around Trump who said he acknowledged privately that he had lost the election. Former top White House communications aide Alyssa Farah, said, “I popped into the Oval just to, like, give the president the headlines and see how he was doing. And he was looking at the TV and he said, ‘Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?”
And according to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, former chief of staff Mark Meadows told her Trump “pretty much acknowledged” that he lost.
The committee also showed never-before-seen footage from the day of the riot. In the videos, members of Congress call Pence, the Defense Department and the governors of Virginia and Maryland and ask them to bring in the National Guard. “We need them there now,” Schumer said in one of the videos. Meanwhile, the committee said, Trump did nothing to stop the rioters.
The committee said they may still subpoena additional witnesses, including members of the Secret Service.
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