The panel on January 6th is bracing for a clash with Donald Trump

Former President Trump | Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

The house committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6 is bracing for its first confrontation with an immovable object: Donald Trump.

Several elements of its job are going well. According to individuals familiar with the panel's activities, the committee has conducted its first closed-door recorded interviews with willing witnesses, and new ones are planned for this week.

Subpoenas will be sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, long-term Trump adviser Dan Scavino, and Trump-world leaders Steve Bannon and Kash Patel on Thursday, requiring them to provide records to the committee. Chairman Of the committee Bennie Thompson (D-MS) stated on Friday that he was prepared to make “criminal referrals” to anyone who failed to meet deadlines.

The deadline for Trump to request that President Joe Biden protect his documents from the committee is anticipated to arrive midweek, though the exact timing is unknown. Trump has vowed that he will try to prevent the publication of the information, a decision that may spark a complicated and uncharted constitutional fight about the boundaries of executive powers assertions by former presidents. Biden's White House has signaled that this will consider the committee's request for papers favorably but has halted short of making a blanket pledge to reveal anything that Trump intends to withhold.

10 October 2021