Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, indicated in a newly released podcast episode created in affiliation with The New York Times that the riot investigation committee may subpoena former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. After getting directly asked by journalist Kara Swisher whether the committee would be subpoenaing Pence, Schiff said that “no one is off the table,” and Schiff replied with the same phrase when asked about whether the panel would subpoena Trump.
Notably, should either of those former top officials get subpoenaed and then decide to try and fight the committee, there’s already an indication that the members of the panel are ready and willing to hold subpoena defiers accountable. Along these lines, the panel is planning to approve a finding of contempt against Steve Bannon on Tuesday, after which the measure will be voted on by the full House, and (assuming it passes the House) it’ll then be formally dispatched to the Department of Justice, which will have the final responsibility of deciding whether to issue criminal charges. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the riot investigation committee, directly said that he hopes Bannon faces criminal consequences for his defiance. Pence and Trump could face similar potential consequences, should they resist possible subpoenas.
During a recent CNN interview, Schiff added the following regarding the general push for information:
‘We’ll determine what went wrong in the lead-up to January 6th, and we’re going to find out who was involved and who was knowledgeable and what roles they played in the planning, what expectation they had of violence, and what the former president was doing. Among the biggest unknowns is what was going on within the White House on January 5th and 6th at that critical time, when our democracy was being threatened with a violent insurrection. So, we’re not wasting time… we’ve made a lot of strides in requiring documents that we need for the investigation.’
Bannon is, as of this point, the only witness who is publicly known to have outright rejected the prospect of engagement with the riot investigation committee. Others, including former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have been revealed to have been compliant with the panel in some capacity. Bannon pointed to Trump’s claims that executive privilege covers what the committee is after in making his own defense for resistance to investigators’ recent subpoena.
