The Congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection of the US Capitol on Tuesday issued subpoenas to former Donald Trump aides, including Rudy Giuliani. Others who have been served are Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn.
All four publically defended Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims and pushed to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.
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“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,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, said in a statement.
The committee said it is seeking records and deposition testimony from Giuliani in connection to his promotion of election fraud claims on behalf of Trump. The panel is also seeking information about Giuliani’s reported efforts to persuade state legislators to take steps to overturn the election results.
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Last year, Giuliani was temporarily suspended from practising law in the state of New York for making “false and misleading statements”. After the election, he visited states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where he claimed ballots “looked suspicious” and Biden’s electoral win was a fraud.
Jenna Ellis reportedly prepared and circulated two memos that analyzed the constitutional authority for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay counting the electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors.
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In numerous interviews and appearances post-election, Powell continued to make misleading statements about the voting process, unfurled unsupported and complex conspiracy theories involving communist regimes and vowed to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing.
The last person subpoenaed Tuesday by the committee is Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign strategic adviser, who reportedly attended meetings at the Willard Hotel in the days leading up to the insurrection. The committee said Epshteyn had a call with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, to discuss options to delay the certification of election results in the event of Pence’s unwillingness to deny or delay the process.
With inputs from the Associated Press