Schiff: Jan. 6 investigation going 'straight to subpoenas' in some cases
The select panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is preparing to issue immediate subpoenas to witnesses whom the panel expects to resist cooperation, one Democratic member said Tuesday.
"In some cases, we're making requests we think will be complied with," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters. "In other cases, we're going straight to subpoenas where we think we're dealing with recalcitrant witnesses."
It's a sharp break from previous practices in recent House investigations, including the impeachment of Donald Trump that Schiff led in 2019, when committees gave potential witnesses weeks to voluntarily comply before issuing subpoenas. Schiff said the change is an acknowledgment of the short timeline that the Jan. 6 panel faces to try to unearth details about the Trump White House's role in the Capitol attack and the former president's attempts to subvert the 2020 election results.
The committee is going to "forgo some of the time-consuming steps" that have dogged previous investigations, Schiff added, Compared with the independent 9/11 Commission two decades ago, he said, the Jan. 6 panel is moving with "great rapidity."
"And where we do meet resistance, we intend to push back hard and fast," Schiff added.
Schiff said he also hoped the Biden administration would break from Trump-era practices of fighting efforts by Congress to hold witnesses in contempt if they refuse to cooperate. The Biden administration's posture toward the Jan. 6 committee may also help speed up efforts to garner new information, he added, noting that the current Justice Department is unlikely to support what he called "bogus claims of [executive] privilege" by the Trump team.
Schiff declined to identify specific witnesses the panel would call but said he and fellow committee members are learning new information, and that he expects these new details to "mushroom" in the coming weeks.
The Jan. 6 panel is getting a boost from the House Oversight Committee, whose chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a brief interview that transcripts of her panel’s closed-door interviews with former Trump administration officials had been turned over to the Capitol riot investigators “because they wanted that particular area.”
“We are working with them. We always work with everybody,” she said.
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
