Topline
Lawmakers investigating the Capitol riot subpoenaed six lawyers on Tuesday with purported ties to several of former President Donald Trump’s dubious last-ditch strategies to stay in office, including a push for Georgia election officials to “find” extra Trump votes and a drastic proposal to seize voting machines.
Key Facts
The committee subpoenaed lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was on an infamous January 2021 phone call during which Trump falsely insisted to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) that his state was mired with voter fraud and encouraged Raffensperger’s team to “find” just enough votes to reverse President Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.
Lawmakers also targeted a never-issued executive order that would’ve compelled federal agencies to “seize” voting machines, subpoenaing two lawyers—Christina Bobb and Katherine Friess—who were reportedly involved in drafting the order.
Attorney Kurt Olsen was subpoenaed because he pushed the Department of Justice in December 2020 to file a sweeping last-minute legal complaint seeking to toss out Biden’s victories in multiple swing states, and reportedly penned a draft executive order urging the DOJ to take “voter action,” the January 6 committee said.
The committee subpoenaed Kenneth Chesebro, who reportedly helped devise an unsuccessful strategy to submit “alternate” Electoral College certificates pledging to Trump electoral votes from various swing states won by Biden (the committee had previously subpoenaed several Republicans who signed those certificates).
A final subpoena went to Phillip Kline, who helped organize a call between Trump and hundreds of state legislators to “disseminate purported evidence of election fraud,” the committee claimed, citing a Washington Examiner article.
All six attorneys were told to submit documents to the select committee and appear for testimony later this month (Forbes has reached out to the six individuals or their lawyers for comment).
Key Background
The January 6 select committee has subpoenaed dozens of former Trump Administration officials and allies, seeking information about both the Capitol riot and Trump’s months-long push to stay in office despite losing to Biden. After the Trump campaign’s dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn state-level election results largely failed in late 2020, the former president’s allies began weighing a set of unprecedented and untested strategies to reverse the election’s outcome. Trump and his attorneys pushed state legislators and officials like Raffensperger to overturn Biden’s wins in multiple states, Giuliani and attorney Sydney Powell reportedly discussed whether to take federal custody of voting equipment, and the campaign reportedly orchestrated a scheme to draft Electoral College certificates falsely presenting Trump as the winner of several states.
