Trump Responds to Jan. 6 Committee Subpoena

On Oct. 13, the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol publicly voted to issue a subpoena to former President Trump seeking information about his involvement in the insurrection. 

In response to the subpoena, Trump issued a letter to select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) calling committee members “highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination” and called Congress’s Jan. 6 investigation a “Charade and Witch Hunt.” Trump then urged Thompson and other committee members to examine the “massive Election Fraud” that Trump insists took place during the 2020 presidential election. 

Trump also defended his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which were a point of scrutiny at the Jan. 6 select committee hearing on Oct. 13. Trump claimed that the committee “willfully ignored” that he allegedly recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to the Capitol in the days before Jan. 6 because he “knew, just based on instinct and what [he] was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to [his] speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible.” He then blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) for the hours-long delay in the deployment of the National Guard to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack, arguing that he “did [his] job long ahead schedule” and that the “troops were ready to go.”

In closing, Trump lauded the “great American Patriots” who participated in the attack on the Capitol, and said that they “have had their lives ruined” by the committee.

You can read Trump’s letter here or below: