Washington — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol plans to vote Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the committee’s plans confirmed to CBS News.
The vote is expected to occur during a formal committee business meeting the panel convened Thursday, across which all of its nine members are delivering presentations about the campaign by Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power. NBC News was first to report the news of the committee’s plans to vote on subpoenaing Trump.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the committee, told reporters ahead of the proceedings that the committee had “not ruled out” subpoenaing Trump. While delivering an opening statement at the start of the hearing, he noted it was a formal committee business meeting, allowing members to “potentially hold a committee vote on further investigative action based upon that evidence.”
The vote to compel the former president to provide information is a dramatic escalation in the committee’s investigation, across which the panel conducted more than 1,000 interviews and depositions, including with a range of White House officials, members of Trump’s Cabinet, and campaign aides.
Committee members repeatedly said over the course of its probe publicly they were weighing whether to ask Vice President Mike Pence to appear before them, but had not yet decided whether to do so. They also had not yet decided whether to issue a subpoena to the former president.
Trump will likely challenge a subpoena issued by the select committee. In the past, he has asked the federal courts to intervene in efforts by the congressional Democrats to obtain his tax returns and financial records, as well as the select committee’s attempt to get Trump’s White House records from the National Archives and Records Administration.
In January, the Supreme Court turned down Trump’s request to block the release of his White House documents, and the committee received the records soon after. Only Justice Clarence Thomas noted he would have granted Trump’s request to shield the records from House investigators.
Over the course of its year-long investigation, the select committee mapped out what it has described as the multi-pronged effort by the former president to stay in office despite losing the 2020 election to President Biden.
Those efforts, which were rooted in his baseless claims the election was rife with voter fraud, culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
House investigators held eight public hearings through the summer, with Thursday’s proceeding, their ninth, likely to be its last. Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, said during opening remarks that the focus of the meeting is Trump’s “state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding.”
“The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed,” she said. “None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it.”
