Adding to the already thick stack of subpoenas doled out by the Jan. 6 Committee as it continues its investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol, chair Bennie Thompson rolled out 10 more subpoenas Tuesday, including one for Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior advisor and White House stalwart instrumental in so much of the former president’s most virulent policies.
“The Select Committee wants to learn every detail of what went on in the White House on Jan. 6 and in the days beforehand. We need to know precisely what role the former president and his aides played in efforts to stop the counting of electoral votes and if they were in touch with anyone outside the White House attempting to overturn the outcome of the election,” Thompson said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon.
The latest batch of subpoenas has been issued to players both large and small in the Trump administration. At the more senior level, in addition to Miller, congressional investigators have also demanded documents and depositions from former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Vice President Mike Pence’s national security advisor, Keith Kellogg.
According to the committee, Miller is being subpoenaed because, based on his own public statements, he repeatedly spread bogus information about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election and set himself about the task of encouraging state legislators to alter the election’s outcome “by, among other things, appointing alternate slates of electors to send competing electoral votes to the United States Congress.”
Indeed, in December, Miller appeared on Fox & Friends saying: “The only date in the Constitution is Jan. 20, so we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election.”
Donald Trump did not win the election, but that did not deter Miller.
“As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we’re going to send those results up to Congress. This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open. That means that if we win these cases in the courts, that we can direct the alternate slate of electors be certified.”
In reality, nothing in the Constitution or even in-state electoral processes permits an “alternate” slate of electors. And there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election, per Trump’s very own Attorney General William Barr.
Miller also had a hand in crafting Trump’s remarks from the Ellipse on Jan. 6 and was at the White House during the siege, legislators note. Miller was with Trump, too, when the president delivered his inciteful speech that eventually descended into chaos that morning. Lawmakers have demanded Miller be deposed on Dec. 14.
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who stood at the dais in the James Brady briefing room to deliver daily canned responses and admonish any press that would dare question the president or his policies, has also been slapped with a subpoena.
“In a press conference, after the election, you claimed that there are ‘very real claims’ of fraud that the Trump re-election campaign was pursuing and said that mail-in voting was one that ‘we have identified as being particularly prone to fraud,’” the subpoena to McEnany states.
Like Miller, McEnany was with Trump when he traveled to the Ellipse and spoke at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.
She also “popped out to join Mr. Trump as he watched the attack on the U.S. Capitol later that afternoon,” the committee said. McEnany’s deposition is slated for Dec. 3.
Keith Kellogg, Pence’s onetime national security adviser may also have credible evidence sought after by investigators. Lawmakers want records connected to a meeting Kellogg took with Trump and attorney Pat Cipollone during which Trump reportedly insisted that “Pence needed to send the votes back and not certify the election.”
“You were in the White House with former President Trump as the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded and have direct information about the former president’s statements about, and reactions to, the Capitol insurrection,” the committee emphasized.
Kellogg also allegedly met with Trump before the rally and then afterward where he “urged Mr. Trump to send out a tweet to his supporters at the U.S. Capitol to help control the crowd.”
This is the first time Kellogg has received a subpoena from congress as it relates to Trump. In 2019, during Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, Kellogg was revealed to be on the July 25 call Trump took with Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky when the commander-in-chief abused his power as he pursued political dirt on Joe Biden. Lawmakers never called Kellogg forward during that inquiry.
Kellogg is scheduled to be deposed on Dec. 1.
In addition to Miller, McEnany, and Kellogg, lawmakers also want to hear from John McEntee, the former body man turned White House Personnel director who, lawmakers contend, was in the Oval Office with Trump when Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, campaign counsel Justin Clark, and Pence discussed auditing the count in Georgia.
Investigators also believe McEntee listened in as Giuliani gamed out how to seize Dominion voting machines.
As the director of personnel, McEntee was privy to or involved directly in communications wherein officials were questioned about their loyalty to the president.
Further, investigators said, McEntee “specifically discouraged a number of individuals from seeking employment after the election, as it would appear to be a concession of President Trump’s defeat.”
Deposition for McEntee is slated for Dec. 15.
Benjamin Williamson, the former deputy assistant to Trump and senior adviser to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, is “in a position to potentially inform the Select Committee’s examination of Mr. Meadows’ efforts to communicate” with other officials, the subpoena states.
Williamson allegedly discussed already-dismissed voter fraud cases with officials in Georgia and during the attack on the Capitol, reportedly spoke to both White House communications director Alyssa Farah and Meadows. Farah urged the men that day to have Trump issue a statement both addressing the attack and condemning the violence.
Williamson is slated to appear for deposition by Dec. 2.
Other officials subpoenaed Tuesday include Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former personal assistant; Molly Michael, special assistant to the president and Oval Office operations coordinator; Christopher Liddell, former White House deputy chief of staff; Cassidy Hutchinson, special assistant to the president for legislative affairs and Kenneth Klukowski, former senior counsel to then-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Clark has already been subpoenaed by the committee but has reportedly stonewalled members, citing claims of executive privilege.
Investigators say Luna was in the Oval Office with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6 and was listening in as Trump urged Pence not to certify the election results.
Michael, as a special assistant, was in regular contact with Trump and was “specifically involved in sending information about alleged election fraud to various individuals, apparently at the director of President Trump,” the committee asserts.
In December, Michael forwarded an email to Jeffrey Rosen, then-acting attorney general, with the blaring subject line “From POTUS,” and attached to it talking points plus a “purported forensic report discussing unfounded voting irregularities in Antrim County, Michigan.”
Michael sent another email on Dec. 29 on Trump’s behalf to Justice Department officials, including the solicitor general, ultimately hankering to have the department file a lawsuit at the Supreme Court in hopes of overturning the election results.
Christopher Liddell’s testimony could prove useful to the committee: Not only was he in the White House on Jan. 6, he frequently communicated with Meadows.
Liddell, originally from New Zealand, told a reporter at the New Zealand-based news outlet Newsroom, that the events of Jan. 6 “horrified him” and he considered quitting but “after a great deal of persuasion,” Newsroom reported, he opted to stay.
As for Hutchinson, she accompanied Trump to the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, and prior to that, on Dec. 30, following Meadows’ trip to Georgia for an election audit, investigators allege Hutchinson reached out directly to Georgia’s deputy secretary Jordan Fuchs by email.
Hutchinson, like many of the other assistants to the president, is believed to have communicated directly with members of Women for America First, including its founder Amy Kremer. Kremer has already received a subpoena, but her deposition has been delayed for now.
Klukowski, Jeffrey Clark’s senior counsel, was engaged in attempts to “involve the Department of Justice” to get in on the alternate slate of electors scheme, the committee argues.
As of Tuesday, 35 subpoenas have been issued as lawmakers keep ramping up their probe. On Monday, the panel kicked off the week issuing six new demands, including one to John Eastman, author of the six-point memo instructing Pence how to deny Joe Biden’s win.
Meanwhile, Trump has appeared anxious to shroud hundreds of pages of records from the select committee. The judge handling his request, however, has so far appeared disinclined to go against President Joe Biden’s formal refusal to assert executive privilege over the records.
