Jan. 6 panel demands testimony from Stephen Miller, Kayleigh McEnany
Investigators are accelerating their efforts to compel testimony from key Donald Trump aides with knowledge of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, White House personnel director Johnny McEntee and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany are among a new batch of senior Trump White House aides subpoenaed Tuesday by the House’s Jan. 6 select committee.
Investigators are accelerating their efforts to compel testimony from key Donald Trump aides who had visibility into the chaotic final weeks of his presidency, as he worked feverishly to overturn the results of the election.
The new subpoenas also target Nick Luna, Trump’s body man on the day of the attack, and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, then-Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser. The panel is seeking documents from the group by Nov. 23 and is demanding depositions between late November and mid-December.
Tuesday’s subpoenas are the second significant wave in as many days. The first included key Trump-world figures like former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney John Eastman, who both played key roles in aiding Trump’s quest to overturn the election.
Prior to this week, the panel had subpoenaed former top Trump aides like chief of staff Mark Meadows, social media adviser Dan Scavino, adviser Steve Bannon and Pentagon official Kash Patel. The committee has also tried to pry testimony from a dozen organizers of pro-Trump rallies that preceded the violent attack on the Capitol.
The latest rounds of subpoenas turned the committee’s lens back on the White House. Miller, a top Trump policy adviser, helped the former president draft his remarks to a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and supported Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the aftermath of his defeat.
The batch also includes Ben Williamson, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer who followed former Rep. Meadows to the White House when Trump named him chief of staff. Another target, Cassidy Hutchinson, was Meadows’ legislative adviser, who Reuters revealed had contacted election officials in Georgia to ask how the White House could express gratitude to officials reviewing the vote.
Additionally, the panel’s new subpoenas target Molly Michael, a Trump assistant who emailed talking points about voter fraud in Michigan to top Justice Department officials in December. The committee also lists Meadows aide Christopher Liddell, Kenneth Klukowski, a Trump Justice Department official that Senate investigators say appeared to play a role in pressuring senior DOJ officials to join Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
But McEntee may have the most far-reaching insight into Trump’s mindset after his election defeat. McEntee was at the center of Trump’s post-election personnel moves, and was described as the architect of “purges” of employees deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump. He was also present for key conversations related to Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss, according to contemporaneous reports.
The Jan. 6 panel is locked in a legal fight with Trump over access to his White House records related to many of those aides. The records, housed by the National Archives, include voluminous binders that press secretary McEnany compiled for her briefings, the Archives recently revealed.