January 6 Committee Can’t Issue Trump’s Subpoena Because It Can’t Identify Trump’s Lawyer

The U.S. House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol made a big show of voting to subpoena former President Donald Trump last week — but it has not actually issued the subpoena, because it cannot actually identify Trump’s attorney.

ABC News reported Wednesday:

The Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has yet to formally subpoena former President Donald Trump, in part because investigators are still trying to find someone authorized to accept service of it, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

…

[M]ultiple lawyers representing Trump have told committee investigators they aren’t permitted to formally accept service of the subpoena on behalf of Trump, sources familiar with the deliberations say.

As Breitbart News noted, the committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump, after failing — despite weeks of hearings, months of closed-door depositions, and testimony from over 1,000 witnesses — to produce any evidence linking him directly to the Capitol riot.

Trump responded in a letter in which he expressed his outrage that the committee had not addressed his basic claim that the 2020 presidential election had been fraudulent. In theory, he has said he is willing to testify. However, there is no actual subpoena.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted that the committee’s failure to issue the actual subpoena, which was the subject of last week’s dramatic close to the hearings, suggested the entire investigation was “[n]ot a serious effort” but rather a political exercise.

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.