GOP questions Trump subpoena timing: 'Made-for-TV prop'

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January 6th Committee votes unanimously to subpoena Trump

Fox News' senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports.

Republicans are questioning the timing of the January 6 Committee's subpoena of former President Trump – more than a year after it started its investigation and just weeks before Republicans are expected to disband the committee if they win back the House.

"The Select Committee’s unenforceable subpoena is just another made-for-TV prop," Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital.

"Everything the January 6th Committee does is a performance," said Banks, whose appointment to the committee was blocked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The good news is that in a few months, they'll no longer be able to make a mockery of Congress’s investigative authority."

The committee made a last-second change to its scheduled hearing Thursday by making it a "business meeting," which allowed it to hold a unanimous vote in favor of issuing a subpoena for Trump's testimony.

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The House January 6 Committee voted Thursday to subpoena former President Trump.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

"We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion," said committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. "Every American is entitled to those answers, so we can act now to protect our republic."

However, the subpoena vote happened just two-and-a-half months before the end of the current Congress, and Republicans are expected to scrap the committee if they take the majority. That is an extremely short amount of time if the committee intends to go through a legal battle to compel Trump to appear.

It took the House more than two years to force testimony from former White House Counsel Don McGahn in connection with Russia and the 2016 election. It is not clear it would have more luck with Trump in a far more condensed timeframe.

"The Committee held NINE hearings before voting to subpoena President Trump," Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., tweeted. "If they were serious about finding the truth, why didn't they subpoena the President months ago?"

A mob of former President Trump's supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after months of false claims the election was stolen. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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"Today’s subpoena of President Donald J. Trump less than one month from the midterm elections is a desperate political ploy by Democrats and their mainstream media stenographer allies," said House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.

The committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Ilya Shaprio, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, said there are other reasons why the committee may have waited to subpoena Trump.

"I guess they were laying a factual predicate for it. And Trump was always going to be the ultimate witnesses – in both senses of the word, both last and most significant," Shapiro said.

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"It's the court of public opinion, kind of laying out the legitimacy of going after him," Shaprio added as another reason to wait. "If they'd done that right from the beginning then it sort of feeds the narrative that, you know, ‘This whole committee was set up just to get Trump.’"

Lawmakers on the January 6 Committee argue that former President Trump knew the mob of his supporters in D.C. that day was armed.  (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

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Shaprio said that even if Republicans win in the midterms, the subpoena issue could outlive the committee. The House could vote to hold Trump in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department, as it has with some of Trump's advisers who resisted their subpoenas.

That would force Attorney General Merrick Garland's hand on whether to prosecute Trump for contempt, Shapiro said, which he could do even if the committee no longer existed. A jury found Steve Bannon guilty of contempt this summer.

Trump could also simply decide that he wants to testify – a source close to the former president told Fox News Digital Thursday that he "loves the idea," though it's not clear if he will.

The source said if Trump complied with the subpoena and testified, he would "talk about how corrupt the election was, how corrupt the committee was, and how Nancy Pelosi did not call up the National Guard that Trump strongly recommended for her to do three days earlier on January 3, 2021."

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"There's probably part of Trump that wants to appear before the committee and speechify, in his mind turn the tables on them," Shapiro said, although he conceded it's probably more likely Trump will fight the subpoena. "'Want my testimony? I'll go up there. Want this to be even more of a circus? Here we go.' I'm sure the media would enjoy that."

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.