Trump’s legal team tells ex-aides not to cooperate with Jan. 6 panel
WASHINGTON — An attorney for former President Donald Trump, in a letter reviewed by The Washington Post, instructed former advisers, including Mark Meadows, Kash Patel, Dan Scavino and Stephen Bannon, not to comply with congressional investigators who have requested information about their activities related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The letter made headlines at the same time that the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack sent subpoenas for records and testimony from Ali Alexander and Nathan Martin, organizers of the Stop the Steal rally.
The group of former White House aides were subpoenaed last month by the House panel, seeking records and testimony by midnight Thursday. The bipartisan panel is investigating the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop the certification of now-President Joe Biden’s electoral college win, an attack that resulted in five deaths and left some 140 members of law enforcement injured.
Mr. Trump’s legal team argued in the letter, which was first reported by Politico, that records and testimony related to Jan. 6 are protected “from disclosure by the executive and other privileges, including among others the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges.”
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Scavino, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Meadows, who did not respond to requests for comment, ultimately cooperate with the committee.
In a statement provided to the Post, Mr. Patel suggested that he will not cooperate with the committee, referencing his website — “Paid for by Kash Patel Legal Offense Trust” — where he’s raising $250,000 “to fund a top-notch legal team.”
“I will continue to tell the American people the truth about January 6, and I am putting our country and freedoms first through my Fight with Kash initiative,” Mr. Patel said in the statement.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the House select committee, threatened possible contempt charges for Mr. Trump’s former advisers if they did not comply with their subpoenas, saying it ultimately would be up to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee.
“I believe this is a matter of the utmost seriousness and we need to consider the full panoply of enforcement sanctions available to us, and that means criminal contempt citations, civil contempt citations and the use of Congress’s own inherent contempt powers,” Mr. Raskin said Thursday.
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich claimed in a statement that the “outrageously broad records request … lacks both legal precedent and legislative merit.”
“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of President Trump and his administration, but also on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our nation,” Mr. Budowich added.
The letter was a continuation of Mr. Trump’s efforts to use “executive privilege” to resist any cooperation with the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, banking on a legal theory that has successfully allowed presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional scrutiny for decades. Mr. Biden, however, has indicated he will likely share with Congress information about Mr. Trump’s activities on Jan. 6 if asked.
For nearly a year, Mr. Trump has baselessly claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and the former president has continued to push Republican-led audits of election results and sow doubt in the integrity of elections in the country.