Jan. 6 committee unanimously votes to subpoena Trump

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
14 Oct 2022 13:18

"He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him," said committee Chair Bennie Thompson.

Jan. 6 committee unanimously votes to subpoena Trump.

The Jan. 6 select committee unanimously decided to subpoena former President Trump on Thursday.

The 9-0 vote took place on Thursday during the live-streamed meeting intended to prove that Trump was the central antagonist of the attack and earlier attempts to rig the election.

The committee's probe has concentrated on establishing Trump's guilt for what transpired on January 6 and has made him the focal point of the inquiry.

Whether or not the panel should force Trump to testify has been a major issue debated for months. Although the committee is anticipated to disband at the end of the year, a subpoena at this point in their inquiry is mostly symbolic.

It is improbable that Trump would testify in person as a result. Instead, the committee is placing a marker to indicate that it made an effort to speak with Trump directly, knowing that doing so will compel a response from his administration.

However, the former president did not say whether he'd appear before the committee, but he did fire off a series of responses to the meeting on his Truth Social app. “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago? Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting?” Trump wrote Thursday afternoon.

"He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him," said Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

In his opening statement, Thompson said the committee was technically convening as a "formal committee business meeting."

"In addition to presenting evidence, we can potentially hold a committee vote on further investigative action based upon that evidence," he said.

Vice Chair Liz Cheney addressed the viewers stressing that the committee “may ultimately decide” to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department, adding that the panel’s role isn’t to prosecute but to recommend “reforms”.

It is worth noting that during public hearings over the summer, as the panel weighed whether to seek testimony from Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, Bennie Thompson told reporters, “They both have, I would think, significant knowledge of what [went] on.”