January 6th panel says Trump has ‘failed to comply’ with subpoena

The House select committee who are investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riots said that former President Donald Trump has “failed to comply” with its subpoena for documents and testimony.

“In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former President’s noncompliance,” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who serve on the committee, said in a Monday statement.

According to CNN, Trump challenged his subpoena on November 11 by suing the committee, arguing that he would be immune from testifying about when he was President.

Thompson and Cheney said in their statement, “[Trump’s] attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly over the last year.”

Trump’s lawyers said that they have been in discussions with the House over the past week and a half as the subpoena deadlines got closer, offering to consider answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.

Trump’s legal team failed to provide the requested documents by the November 4 deadline, CNN reported. They later replied, saying that Trump wouldn’t testify and that they had found none of the records that the committee had requested.

“The truth is that Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done,” Thompson and Cheney wrote. “Donald Trump orchestrated a scheme to overturn a presidential election and block the transfer of power. He is obligated to provide answers to the American people.”

Thompson has accused Trump’s legal team of delaying proceedings.

“Given the timing and nature of your letter – without any acknowledgment that Mr. Trump will ultimately comply with the subpoena – your approach on his behalf appears to be a delay tactic,” Thompson wrote.

Trump’s attorneys said in response, “the Subpoena’s request for testimony and documents from President Trump is an unwarranted intrusion upon the institution of the Presidency because there are other sources of the requested information, including the thousand-plus witnesses the Committee has contacted and one million documents that the Committee has collected.”