Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan temporarily blocked a subpoena Wednesday by the Democrat-controlled January 6 Committee seeking phone records belonging to Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, with just days to go before the midterm election.
As NBC News reported:
The move by Kagan, a liberal justice who handles emergency applications that originate in Arizona, means the Supreme Court as a whole will decide how to proceed. The House committee has until Friday to respond to Ward’s request to quash the subpoena, which was filed earlier Wednesday.
…
Ward’s case reaches the Supreme Court as the justices are weighing a separate emergency application brought by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seeking to block a subpoena demanding his testimony in a Georgia prosecutor’s investigation into allegations of 2020 election interference. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas issued a similar temporary stay while the court considers how to proceed.
Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, were among 14 of 84 so-called alternate electors subpoenaed this year by the Jan. 6 committee, which cited their association with bogus documents claiming President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election in their states.
The Committee has issued subpoenas to many Trump supporters and officials, seeking phone records in a broad sweep that often goes beyond the timeframe of January 6 and includes many months before, suggesting a more ambitious — and political — agenda.
Similarly, the House Intelligence Committee — run by January 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — used subpoenas to obtain the phone records of President Donald Trump’s lawyer, as well as those of members of the Republican opposition, prompting claims of abuse of power.
Ward, who is a physician, argued that her phone records would contain private information about patients. Her lawyers also told the Supreme Court that the subpoena would violate her First Amendment right to freedom of association.
President Joe Biden and his party have tried to make the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 a central part of their midterm campaign message, calling the “MAGA Republicans” a “threat” to American democracy. Polls suggest that many voters do not agree, or care.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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