House panel subpoenas Jan. 6 rally organizers

WASHINGTON — A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed 11 officials who helped plan rallies in support of former President Donald Trump ahead of the violent attack, including the massive event on the day of the siege at which the president told his supporters to “fight like hell.”

The announcement came as five-time Olympic swimming medalist Klete Keller pleaded guilty to a felony charge for storming the Capitol during the riot. He faces 21 to 27 months in prison.

Keller acknowledged that he tried to obstruct Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, brushed away officers who tried to remove him from the Capitol Rotunda, and yelled profane comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he stood near officers wearing riot gear.

Also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sentenced Derek Jancart and Erik Rau of Ohio to serve 45 days in jail after U.S. prosecutors for the first time requested incarceration for nonviolent misdemeanor offenders in the storming of the Capitol.

The punishment came after federal judges for months have questioned whether no-prison plea deals offered by the government to low-level Jan. 6 defendants are too lenient to deter future attackers from terrorizing members of Congress.

The new House subpoenas followed a first round last week that targeted former White House and administration officials who were in contact with Trump before and during the insurrection.

The committee said in a release Wednesday that the subpoenas are part of the panel’s efforts to collect information from the organizers “and their associated entities on the planning, organization, and funding of those events.”

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the committee, said “the inquiry includes examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities.”

In letters to those who were subpoenaed, Thompson demands that the officials provide documents to the panel by Oct. 13 and appear at separate depositions that the committee has scheduled from late October through the beginning of November.

Thompson cites in the letters efforts by representatives of the group Women for America First to organize the Jan. 6 rally and to communicate with senior White House officials. The subpoenas also mention other events the

group planned in the weeks between Trump’s November election defeat and the January attack.

The panel has ramped up its investigation in recent weeks as it attempts to dissect the origins of the insurrection by Trump’s supporters and find ways to prevent it from happening again.

The attack has been blamed directly or indirectly for nine deaths.