The Jan. 6 committee probing the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday issued subpoenas to former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, and former campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn.
The three lawyers and Epshteyn have been ordered to hand over documents by Feb. 1, and sit for depositions on Feb. 8. It’s unclear at this stage whether they will comply with the House committee’s subpoenas.
“The four individuals advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn election results, or were in direct contact with the former President,” the House of Representatives panel wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.
“We expect these individuals to join the nearly 400 witnesses who have spoken with the Select Committee as the committee works to get answers for the American people about the violent attack on our democracy,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, said in a statement.
Robert Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, said in an interview that the subpoena was “political theater” and that his client was constrained by the legal doctrines of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.
“I don’t think there’s anything here he can testify about,” Costello said.
Powell, Giuliani, and Ellis jointly spoke at a Trump campaign news conference on Nov. 19, 2020, where they vowed to overturn the results of the November 2020 election.
Epshteyn, who held a senior advisor position for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was a member of a “command center” team based in Washington in the lead up to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, The Washington Post reported.
Thompson in his letter to Epshteyn said he participated in a phone call with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6, and delaying the certification of election results was a topic that was discussed.
The chairman made reference to Ellis’ involvement in the preparation and circulation of two memos “purporting to analyze the constitutional authority for the Vice President to reject or delay counting electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors.”
“You actively promoted claims of election fraud on behalf of former President Trump and sought to convince state legislators to take steps to overturn the election results,” the panel wrote to Giuliani, the lead Trump campaign election attorney.
Powell is accused of encouraging Trump in December 2020 to seize voting machines and “find evidence that foreign adversaries had hacked those machines and altered the results of the election.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the Jan. 6 panel for additional comment.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
