Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Rudy Giuliani and other lawyers tied to false election claims

The Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a new round of subpoenas, this time to Rudy Giuliani and other lawyers closely tied to former President Donald Trump's false election claims.

Giuliani acted as a personal lawyer to Trump and was a key figure in a wave of disinformation spread after President Biden was elected.

In all, the panel issued four subpoenas, including to Sidney Powell, a controversial lawyer who pushed conspiracy theories tied to Trump's last campaign; Jenna Ellis, another member of the Trump legal team who pushed false claims Biden lost, and Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer who was a Trump 2020 campaign adviser.

"The four individuals we've subpoenaed today advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn the election results, or were in direct contact with the former President about attempts to stop the counting of electoral votes," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. "We expect these individuals to join the nearly 400 witnesses who have spoken with the Select Committee as the committee works to get answers for the American people about the violent attack on our democracy."

The committee is asking the new subpoenaed witnesses to turn over documents by Feb. 1 and testify by Feb. 8.

The panel said these four participated in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of election results. For example, committee investigators said Giuliani told Trump in a December 2020 meeting to seize voting machines after learning that the Department of Homeland Security had no lawful authority to do so.

Powell led a number of unsuccessful lawsuits challenging election results in some states, while Ellis prepared two memos that claimed to detail authority for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay the receipt of certain state electoral results.

The panel members told Epshteyn they want to question him about meetings he attended at the Willard Hotel before the Jan. 6 siege. They also raised a call Epshteyn had with Trump the morning of the attack that covered options to delay certification without Pence's cooperation.

The new witnesses join a growing list of individuals who face demands to testify, or already have shared information with the committee. Already, the committee has issued more than 60 subpoenas, interviewed about 400 witnesses and obtained more than 50,000 pages of documents.

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