Former US President Donald Trump has sued the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol to avoid cooperating with a subpoena requiring him to testify. The lawsuit filed Friday night claims that while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, “no president or former president has ever been compelled to do so.” “Long-standing precedent and practice hold that the separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it,” Trump’s lawyer, David A. Warrington, said in a statement announcing Trump’s intentions. Warrington said Trump had worked with the committee “in a good faith effort to resolve these concerns consistent with Executive Branch prerogatives and the separation of powers,” but said the committee “continues to pursue a policy course, leaving President Trump with no choice but to involve the third branch, the judicial branch, in this executive-legislative divide.” The committee declined to comment on the filing, which comes days before a deadline the committee set for Trump to begin cooperating. But the lawsuit likely dooms the prospect of Trump ever having to testify, given that the committee is expected to disband at the end of the legislative session in January. It also comes just days before Trump is expected to officially launch a third presidential campaign at the Mar-Lago club. The committee had voted to subpoena Trump in the last televised hearing before the midterm elections and formally did so last month, requiring the former president to testify either on Capitol Hill or via video conference by mid-November and continuing for several days if necessary. The letter also outlined a large request for documents, including personal communications between Trump and members of Congress, as well as extremist groups. Trump’s response to that request was due last week, but the nine-member panel extended the deadline to this week. In his lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers criticize the subpoena as overly broad and a violation of his First Amendment rights. They also argue that sources other than Trump could provide the same information the committee wants from him. The committee — made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans — issued a statement last week saying it was contacting Trump’s lawyers. The commission’s decision to subpoena Trump in late October was a major escalation in its investigation, a step lawmakers said was necessary because members said the former president was the “central player” in a multi-pronged effort to oust him. the results of 2020. election. “I think he has a legal obligation to testify, but that doesn’t always carry weight with Donald Trump,” the committee’s vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-R., said during an event last week. In addition to requiring Trump to testify, the committee also made 19 requests for documents and communications — including any messages Trump sent on the encrypted messaging app Signal or “in any other way” to members of Congress and others concerned with the astonishing events of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The scope of the committee’s request was extensive — seeking documents from Sept. 1, 2020, two months before the election, to the present on the president’s communications with groups such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — as the committee tries to gather a historical account of the period leading up to the attack on the Capitol, the event itself, and the aftermath. Trump’s lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Florida, where other Trump lawyers successfully sued to secure a special master tasked with conducting an independent review of records seized by the FBI during an Aug. 8 search of Mar-a – Lago.
