The House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot has subpoenaed two aides to Donald Trump Jr. and a former White House staffer who helped draft the speech former President Donald Trump gave at his “Stop the Steal” rally shortly before the violence broke out.
The panel said the aides, Andrew Surabian and Arthur Schwartz, were communicating with the 45th president’s eldest son and his now-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle — among others — at the time of the rally.
The third subpoena recipient, Ross Worthington, assisted in the drafting of the speech in which Trump “falsely asserted that he had won the 2020 presidential election and urged the crowd to ‘fight much harder’ and ‘stop the steal,'” according to the committee.
The panel is seeking records and testimony from the three about the planning and preparations for the Ellipse rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol.
“We have reason to believe the individuals we’ve subpoenaed today have relevant information and we expect them to join the more than 340 individuals who have spoken with the Select Committee as we push ahead to investigate this attack on our democracy and ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.
The subpoenas indicate that the panel is focusing on members of the Trump family in addition to key members of his administration.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), one of two Republicans on the panel, said earlier this month that the committee has “firsthand testimony” that Trump’s daughter Ivanka pleaded with him twice to call off his supporters amid the mayhem.
“We know as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television, to tell people to stop. We know Leader McCarthy was pleading with him to do that,” Cheney told ABC News’ “This Week” on Jan. 2, referring to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Last month Cheney read out texts obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that show communications between him and Trump Jr. that day.
“He’s got to condemn this s— ASAP. the Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Trump Jr. texted Meadows at one point.
The then-president’s son also urged his father to speak from the Oval Office about the violence, saying “it has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
In the letters to Schwartz and Surabian, the committee said they wanted to learn more about their contacts before and on Jan. 6 with a host of individuals associated with the former president, including Trump Jr., Guilfoyle, adviser Katrina Pierson, spokesman Taylor Budowich and Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren.
Along with providing the committee their records, the three have been told to sit for depositions — Schwartz on Jan. 31, Surabian on Feb. 1 and Worthington on Feb. 2.
In a statement, Surabian’s lawyer Daniel Bean said his client would cooperate with the committee “within reason,” but added that “we are bewildered as to why Mr. Surabian is being subpoenaed in the first place.”
“He had nothing at all to do with the events that took place at the Capital [sic] that day, zero involvement in organizing the rally that preceded it and was off the payroll of the Trump campaign as of November 15, 2020,” said Bean, who went on to note that Surabian is helping run a super PAC that seeks to unseat Cheney in this year’s House Republican primary.
“Accordingly, we believe this is nothing more than harassment of the committee’s political opponents and is un-American to the core,” concluded Bean.
