January 6 committee issues subpoenas targeting the attempt to delay certification of election results

By Ryan Nobles and Annie Grayer, CNN

The House select committee investigating last year’s US Capitol attack issued subpoenas Tuesday to six different individuals who have ties to the effort to interrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The group represents a wide range of individuals who played a role in a number of different schemes designed to either delay or disrupt the certification of the election results.

The committee issued subpoenas to:

• Cleta Mitchell, a conservative attorney who was directly connected to former President Donald Trump’s campaign and was in regular contact with members of Congress promoting false claims of election fraud.
• Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney that was peddling legal theories to state officials on behalf of the Trump campaign. He also was one of the main proponents of the scheme to introduce a fake slate of electors in key swing states.
• Katherine Friess, an attorney who was also involved in the efforts to overturn the election results and the committee believes played a role in drafting the executive order to seize voting machines. Friess is currently suing the committee to block them from obtaining her phone records.
• Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who helped prepare a draft executive order for the Department of Justice to play a role in subverting the election results.
• Phillip Kline, who helped convene a meeting with Trump and 300 state legislators that led to a number of those state representatives sending a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence encouraging him to delay the certification of the election.
• Christina Bobb, a correspondent for the pro-Trump One America News network, who CNN previously reported was involved in the fake elector plot and played a role in drafting an executive order for Trump that would have empowered federal agencies to seize voting machines in a number of states. The committee believes Bobb was part of the “war room” at the Willard Hotel on January 6 led by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The committee reveals new threads in these subpoenas about the direct communication between some of these individuals and Trump.

The panel says it has documents on file that show Olsen “had multiple telephone calls” with Trump on January 6. Olsen was involved in the plan to draft an executive order that would have directed federal agencies to seize voting machines in numerous states that the Trump campaign was contesting. In its subpoena letter to Olsen, the committee also reveals that it has documents that show Olsen contacted various high-level officials at the Department of Justice at the “direction” of Trump to discuss filing a last-minute challenge to the election using similar logic to a case that the Supreme Court had already rejected.

In its subpoena letter to Mitchell, the panel also says it has documents that show that she too was in contact with Trump in the days leading up to and on January 6.

The committee also reveals that it has documents on Mitchell that show she tried to “prevent, delay, or overturn certification of the popular vote results in several states” and promoted false claims about the election to members of Congress.

The committee discloses in its subpoena letter to Chesebro that it has documents that demonstrate he was involved in efforts that he told the Trump campaign would “bolster” the argument for delaying the certification of the election, and specifically made the case for why the election in Wisconsin was “likely rigged.”

To Kline, the panel unveils in its subpoena letter that it has evidence on file that shows Kline was promoting claims of election fraud directly on behalf of Trump. The committee therefore characterizes the meeting he helped organize between Trump and state officials as “part of that work.”

According to the panel’s subpoena letter to Friess, documents in possession of the committee reveal that Friess was involved in efforts to subpoena voting machines from county election boards, which even included a trip to Michigan where she attempted to obtain voting machine data directly from local officials.

In a statement announcing the committee’s plans for the subpoenas, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, made note of the panel’s interest in the attempts to subvert the process of certifying the election results.

“The six individuals we’ve subpoenaed today all have knowledge related to those matters and will help the Select Committee better understand all the various strategies employed to potentially affect the outcome of the election,” Thompson said. “We expect these witnesses to join the hundreds who have cooperated with the Select Committee as we work to provide the American people with answers about the violence of January 6th and its causes.””

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