The House select committee investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena former president Donald Trump to testify and provide documents related to the attack.
Sources told NBC News that the committee chose to hold a vote during its hearing on Thursday to put the move in the public record, though members acknowledge it is unlikely Trump will comply.
If Trump does not comply with the subpoena, the committee will be left to decide if they will vote to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress. If the panel votes to do so, the matter would then head to the full House for a vote.
The committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), said at the start of the hearing that lawmakers could vote on “further investigation action” during the meeting.
Thompson later called Trump “the one person at the center of the story of January 6,” adding, “so we want to hear from him.”
“It is our obligation to seek Donald Trump’s testimony,” Thompson said.
He added that the committee recognizes that the decision to subpoena a former president is a “serious and extraordinary action.”
“That’s why we want to take this step in full view of the American people,” he said.
“There’s precedent in American history to congress to compel the testimony of a President. There is also precedent for presidents to provide testimony and documentary evidence to congressional investigators,” Thompson added.
Thompson said the committee has worked for more than a year, conducting more than 1,000 interviews and depositions and reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in explaining that hearing from Trump is the next step in the committee’s investigation.
Trump responded to the vote on Thursday, writing in a post on his Truth Social platform asking why the “Unselect Committee” didn’t ask him to testify months ago.
“Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting?” he wrote. “Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly – A laughing stock all over the World?”
After the hearing, asked if he believed Trump will actually testify, Thompson told reporters: “He’s a former president, we hope that he honors it. The best thing I can tell you on that is … ask Donald Trump.” He said the committee does not plan to subpoena former vice president Mike Pence.
Talked with Bennie Thompson about the subpoena for Trump. He wouldn’t say if they would go to court to fight this. Asked if he really thought Trump would testify, he said: “Ask Donald Trump.” He says “no” subpoena for Pence pic.twitter.com/HxvhWUCfhv
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 13, 2022
Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo), the committee’s vice chairwoman, said early in the hearing the panel “may ultimately decide” to make a series of referrals to the Justice Department. However, she noted it is not the committee’s job to prosecute.
She later noted that more than 30 witnesses had invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“At some point, the Department of Justice may well unearth the facts that these and other witnesses are currently concealing,” Cheney said. “But our duty today is to our country and our children and our Constitution. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion. And every American is entitled to the answers, so we can act now to protect our republic.”
BREAKING: Liz Cheney calls for Jan. 6 Committee to subpoena former Pres. Trump: "Our duty today is to our country and our children and our Constitution. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion." https://t.co/iWzOdKgwUh pic.twitter.com/6DGbRZswTu
— ABC News (@ABC) October 13, 2022
Cheney is one of only two Republicans on the committee, along with Representative Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) Both are serving out their final days in Congress as Kinzinger has decided to retire and Cheney was defeated in her primary election by a Trump-backed challenger.
A source told the New York Times that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been made of aware of the plan to issue the subpoena ahead of the hearing.
The committee shared a memo during the Thursday hearing from the president of conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch advising Trump to declare victory on election night in 2020 and to say that “only the votes counted by the Election Day deadline” were valid. The memo, written by Tom Fitton, was sent to the committee by the National Archives.
Committee member Representative Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.) refuted the assertion that there is any such “Election Day deadline” because of absentee and mail-in ballots that can be lawfully processed after Election Day.
A November 3 email indicated Fitton had discussed the memo with Trump. Lofgren argued that the memo shows Trump’s plan to claim he had won the election “was in place before any of the results had been determined.”