Committee considers ‘next steps’ as Trump defies subpoena

The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol says it’s mulling “next steps” after former President Donald Trump officially defied its subpoena for testimony and documents.

Issuing a statement attacking Trump’s “noncompliance,” the leaders of the panel accused the former president of ducking accountability for his role in the attack on the Capitol.

“Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-miss., and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-wyo., said in a statement.

Trump initially claimed he was eager to speak publicly to the committee, despite deriding the probe as a partisan “witch hunt.”

But he filed a lawsuit last week in federal court seeking to block the subpoena, a move that is likely to allow him to stall until the committee’s term expires at the end of 2022.

The committee said Trump’s lawyers “made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort.”

The panel could vote to refer Trump to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for contempt of Congress as it has done with four Trump aides who similarly refused to testify.

Federal prosecutors brought charges against ex-trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. But they declined to do so in the cases of former chief of staff Mark Meadows and social media director Dan Scavino.

Legal experts say Trump would be foolhardy to testify about his effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election because he is facing criminal investigations into some of the same issues.

The Democratic-led committee is still interviewing witnesses behind closed doors after holding what appears to be its final public hearing last month.

It plans to issue a final report before Dec. 31 detailing what the 1-1/2-year probe has unearthed and suggested legislative fixes to make sure it cannot happen again.