The congressional Jan. 6 Committee on Tuesday issued subpoenas to Rudy Giuliani and other key players in Donald Trump’s orbit.
In addition to the erstwhile Trump lawyer, subpoenas were also sent to Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn. Separately on Tuesday, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources, that the committee had subpoenaed and subsequently obtained phone records associated with Eric Trump, as well as with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée.
The subpoenas to the group, which includes three lawyers that at one point represented Trump’s campaign, show the committee’s expanding scope: Beyond the Jan. 6 attack itself, the panel is looking into the months-long effort to sow doubt about — and ultimately overturn — the 2020 election results.
“The four individuals we’ve subpoenaed today advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn the election results, or were in direct contact with the former President about attempts to stop the counting of electoral votes,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in a statement.
The committee’s letters to the four individuals hinted at its specific interests in the subpoenaed documents and testimony.
The committee wrote to Giuliani and Powell, for example, that on top of their efforts to “disrupt or delay” the certification of electoral results, the committee was also looking into the attorneys’ attempt to convince Trump to seize voting machines, as detailed in an Axios report and in committee testimony.
Powell and Giuliani are now the target in massive lawsuits from the two voting machine vendors they attacked as corrupt during the campaign, Dominion and Smartmatic. In footnotes, the committee noted other consequences for the attorneys’ work pushing election lies: Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in New York and Washington, D.C., and Powell has been sanctioned in federal court and referred for potential disbarment in Texas.
To Ellis, the committee noted that according to a Politico report, “you prepared and circulated two memos purporting to analyze the constitutional authority for the Vice President to reject or delay counting electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors.”
Boris Epshteyn, according to the committee’s letter, was of interest in part due to reports that placed him at the Willard Hotel, a beehive of Trumpian activity, in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
In addition, the committee said, “you are reported to have participated in a call with former President Trump on the morning of January 6, during which options were discussed to delay the certification of election results in light of Vice President Pence’s unwillingness to deny or delay certification.”
The subpoenas demanded that their recipients turn over requested documents by Feb. 1, and appear before the committee for a deposition on Feb. 8.
The letters to the individuals can be found here:
This post has been updated.
