Five GOP Representatives who have previously declined to cooperate with the January 6 Committee investigating the attempted coup have now been subpoenaed. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy is one of the five.
The committee’s leaders had been reluctant to issue subpoenas to their fellow lawmakers. That is an extraordinarily rare step for most congressional committees to take, though the House Ethics Committee, which is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, is known to do so.
For McCarthy, the committee wants to know about a heated phone conversation he had with ex-president Trump as the Capitol building was being breached by insurrectionists. The Washington Post adds:
In a January letter to McCarthy, Thompson said the panel is interested in his correspondence with Meadows ahead of the attack, along with McCarthy’s communications with Trump during and after the riot. Details of those conversations could provide the committee with further insight into Trump’s state of mind at the time, Thompson wrote.
“We also must learn about how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attempted to alter the results of the election,” he Thompson wrote. “For example, in advance of January 6th, you reportedly explained to Mark Meadows and the former President that objections to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6th ‘was doomed to fail.’”
Politico adds key context:
The subpoenas target some of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in the House, several of whom were engaged in numerous meetings and planning sessions amid Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. The move represents a sharp escalation in the select committee’s tactics after months of weighing how aggressively to pursue testimony from their own colleagues.
Public hearings begin in June. More than 1,000 witnesses have testified to the committee.