The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed former President Donald Trump Friday, and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Trump will not be able to turn his testimony into a “circus.”
“The committee treats this matter with great seriousness,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves.”
The committee voted unanimously on the subpoena and is demanding relevant records and Trump’s testimony under oath next month.
“We recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a significant and historic action,” the panel’s leaders wrote Trump in a letter on Friday. Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Cheney cited what they called Trump’s central role in a deliberate, “multi-part effort” to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The subpoena said that Trump would be deposed on Nov. 14, after the midterm elections. It is not clear whether he will comply.
Former White House aide Stephen Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail earlier Friday for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the same committee. He remains free pending appeal.
Cheney said the committee has made it clear what Trump’s obligations are, and that it plans to proceed accordingly.
“This isn’t going to be his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became,” she said. “This is a far too serious set of issues.”