Will the 1/6 Committee Force Jared and Ivanka to Testify Against Donald Trump?

As Republican Party pariah Liz Cheney made clear Tuesday in her opening remarks at the House’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol, lawmakers must get to the bottom of the events surrounding the insurrection or it will “remain a cancer on our Constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democratic system.“ Specifically, Cheney insisted that the House select committee must not only determine “what happened here at the Capitol” but what Donald Trump was up to as well, saying, “We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House—every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during, and after the attack.”

Now, if Trump was (trigger warning here) still in power, his administration would no doubt refuse to allow anyone who had any contact with him on January 6 to testify before the committee, asserting executive privilege. But luckily for Congress, the country, and the humanity, Trump isn’t in power anymore.

Per The Guardian:

Former Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Donald Trump’s role in the deadly January attack on the Capitol and his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, the Justice Department (DOJ) has said in a letter obtained by The Guardian. The move by the Justice Department to decline to assert executive privilege for Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, clears the path for other top former officials to also testify to congressional committees investigating the Capitol attack without fear of repercussions. The Justice Department authorized witnesses to appear specifically before the two committees. But a DOJ official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they expected that approval to extend to the January 6 select committee that began proceedings on Tuesday.

Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee, told The Guardian in a recent interview that he would investigate both Trump and anyone who communicated with the former president on January 6, raising the prospect of depositions with an array of Trump officials.

The Justice Department’s decision marks a sharp departure from the Trump era, when the department repeatedly intervened on behalf of top White House officials to assert executive privilege and shield them from congressional investigations into the former president.

Who might Thompson’s committee want to talk to and what kind of questions might they ask? In addition to Rosen, The Washington Post suggested several people of interest on Tuesday:

Top of the list is precisely what then president Donald Trump did before, during, and after the attack. How did he prepare his speech preceding the insurrection, in which he told the crowd to fight? What did he anticipate his audience’s reaction would be? When did he know the pro-Trump mob was threatening the Capitol? Why did he offer only mild statements long after the danger was clear? Did Trump-affiliated rally organizers coordinate with extremist groups? Answering such questions calls for subpoenaing former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner; and other White House aides with useful information.

There are also people like Representative Jim Jordan, who admitted on Tuesday that he’d spoken with Trump on January 6, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who we know had a chat with the then president on that fateful day, despite the fact that he‘d now like to pretend the whole thing never happened.

Unfortunately, as Politico points out, members of Team Trump have some experience being asked, and later, subpoenaed to testify before Congress, and are likely already planning how to stonewall any and all attempts to assist the committee:

Last Congress, House Dems had a major problem with people in Trump world ignoring their subpoenas—so much so that they actually opted not to subpoena key witnesses during the impeachment fights…. The case over the ignored subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn from 2019 was resolved just a few months ago under a settlement in which he agreed to testify—there was never a court ruling upholding Congress’ oversight powers, which many Dems wanted. From covering House oversight for several years, we have an educated guess where this might be headed: You can expect similar feet-dragging and legal theatrics this time.

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