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      Jan. 6 Panel Faces Difficult Questions as Anniversary of Capitol Riot Approaches

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      Decisions about subpoenas and a Supreme Court ruling loom as lawmakers, staff members and Capitol employees plan to commemorate the day.WASHINGTON — The anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot arrives this week with the congressional committee investigating the attack confronting a series of difficult questions, including how forcefully to flex its subpoena power and whether the Supreme Court will stymie a major element of its inquiry.As the nine-member panel continues to examine the events leading up to the worst attack on Congress in centuries, it is waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will refuse a request from former President Donald J. Trump to block the committee’s access to White House records related to the riot. The committee also has not ruled out moving to subpoena members of Congress, or Mr. Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.Thursday will mark a year since a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, determined to disrupt the formal certification of President Biden’s electoral victory. At least seven people died in connection with the riot, dozens more were injured and hundreds of workers in the Capitol were shaken and traumatized, further fracturing an increasingly partisan Congress.The committee, aiming to release a final report before the November midterm elections, is planning for a more public stage of its investigation in the coming weeks as lawmakers work to trace the planning of the attack and expand the scope of the investigation. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the panel, said on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that public hearings could begin “in a matter of weeks, if not a couple of months from now.”But as the inquiry continues, the first anniversary will draw even more attention as lawmakers, staff members, Capitol employees and journalists commemorate the day. Both Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to give speeches marking the anniversary.While the House is not scheduled to return for legislative work until Jan. 10, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has mapped out events for lawmakers to participate in on Thursday, either in Washington or virtually from their districts, in what she described as “an observance of reflection, remembrance and recommitment.”The House will hold a moment of silence before Dr. Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress, moderates a discussion with historians “to establish and preserve the narrative of Jan. 6,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a letter to her caucus. Lawmakers will give speeches reflecting on the day, and lawmakers will hold an early evening prayer vigil on the center steps of the Capitol.Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?Unlike the House, the Senate is scheduled to be in session this week as Democrats continue confirming Biden administration nominees and seek to revive their party’s stalled legislative agenda. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, is expected to invoke the riot and efforts by Trump loyalists to overturn the 2020 election as he pushes to pass a voting rights overhaul and try to change Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster against that legislation.The Senate Rules Committee will hold an oversight hearing with J. Thomas Manger, the Capitol Police chief, on Wednesday. On Thursday, however, it is likely that some senators may be in Atlanta to attend an afternoon memorial service for former Senator Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican who died in December.Some lawmakers have questioned whether it was appropriate for Congress to be in session, given the lingering trauma from the day.“It was a sad day in our nation’s history, and a terrible day, and I don’t think bringing a lot of attention to the day is a great idea,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump after he was impeached for his role in inciting the mob that day. “For some of the staffers,” she added, “for some of the Capitol Police officers, it brings back a lot of trauma, and I just think it’d be better if we aren’t here.”A majority of Republicans, however, have sought to downplay the attack. They have largely refused to acknowledge their party’s complicity in failing to quash Mr. Trump’s lies about the election and cut ties with the former president, who continues to peddle conspiracy theories rather than accept his electoral loss.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, called former President Donald J. Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6 “a dereliction of duty.”Jason Andrew for The New York Times“Our party has to choose,” Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee and one of two Republican panel members, said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And right now there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president.”In a series of separate televised appearances on Sunday, Ms. Cheney and Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, pointedly did not rule out making criminal referrals to the Justice Department.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      Jan. 6 Panel Seeks Interview With Jim Jordan, a Close Trump Ally

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      The House committee said investigators wanted to ask Mr. Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio, about his conversations with former President Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Capitol attack asked Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio on Wednesday to sit for an interview with its investigators, in the latest step the panel has taken to dig into the role that members of Congress played in trying to undermine the 2020 election.The committee’s letter to Mr. Jordan, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, says that investigators want to question him about his communications related to the run-up to the Capitol riot. Those include Mr. Jordan’s messages with Mr. Trump, his legal team and others involved in planning rallies on Jan. 6 and congressional objections to certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on Jan. 6,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, wrote in the letter. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.”Mr. Jordan, a Republican, was deeply involved in Mr. Trump’s effort to fight the election results. He participated in planning meetings with senior White House officials, including a gathering in November 2020 at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., and a meeting at the White House last December, where Republican lawmakers discussed plans with the president’s team to use the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to challenge the election outcome.On Jan. 5, Mr. Jordan forwarded to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, a text message he had received from a lawyer and former Pentagon inspector general outlining a legal strategy to overturn the election.Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?“On Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” the text read.Mr. Jordan has acknowledged speaking with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, though he has said he cannot remember how many times they spoke that day or when the calls occurred.The committee is particularly interested in what Mr. Trump was doing during the riot, Mr. Thompson said, noting that it had already received testimony “indicating that the president was watching television coverage of the attack from his private dining room” before his legal team resumed the effort to “delay or otherwise impede the electoral count.”Mr. Thompson also said the committee wanted to ask Mr. Jordan about any discussions involving the possibility of presidential pardons for people involved in any aspect of Jan. 6.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, has said that Mr. Jordan is a “material witness” to the events of Jan. 6. Mr. Jordan has said he will consider cooperating with the committee depending on its requests, though he also called the panel a “sham.”Mr. Thompson noted that Mr. Jordan told the Rules Committee in November, “I have nothing to hide.”Despite claiming on the House floor on Jan. 6 that “Americans instinctively know there was something wrong with this election,” Mr. Jordan has since said that he never called the election stolen.A spokesman for Mr. Jordan did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the congressman referred to the letter in an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday evening.“We just got the letter today,” Mr. Jordan said. “We’re going to review the letter.” He added that he had “real concerns” about the committee, claiming that it had altered documents in a misleading way when presenting evidence to the public.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      Jan. 6 Committee Weighs Possibility of Criminal Referrals

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      The House panel is examining whether there is enough evidence to recommend that the Justice Department pursue cases against Donald J. Trump and others.When the House formed a special committee this summer to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, its stated goal was to compile the most authoritative account of what occurred and make recommendations to ensure it never happens again.But as investigators sifted through troves of documents, metadata and interview transcripts, they started considering whether the inquiry could yield something potentially more consequential: evidence of criminal conduct by President Donald J. Trump or others that they could send to the Justice Department urging an investigation.That move — known as sending a criminal referral — has no legal weight, as Congress has little ability to tell the Justice Department what investigations it should undertake. But it could have a substantial political impact by increasing public pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who in his first year in office has largely sidestepped questions about what prosecutors are doing to examine the conduct of Mr. Trump and his aides as they promoted baseless allegations of voter fraud.The questions of criminality go far beyond the contempt of Congress referrals that the House has sent to the Justice Department for Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for their refusal to cooperate with the investigation. (Federal law requires prosecutors to bring contempt of Congress charges before a grand jury upon receiving such a referral.)According to people briefed on their efforts, investigators for the committee are looking into whether a range of crimes were committed, including two in particular: whether there was wire fraud by Republicans who raised millions of dollars off assertions that the election was stolen, despite knowing the claims were not true; and whether Mr. Trump and his allies obstructed Congress by trying to stop the certification of electoral votes.It is not clear what, if any, new evidence the committee has that might support a criminal referral, when and how it will determine whether to pursue that option and whether the committee could produce a case strong enough to hold up against inevitable accusations that it acted in a partisan manner.Behind the scenes, the committee’s day-to-day work is being carried out by a team of 40 investigators and staff members, including former federal prosecutors. The panel has obtained more than 30,000 records and interviewed more than 300 witnesses, including about a dozen last week whom committee members say provided “key” testimony.In recent weeks, the committee has publicly signaled its interest in the question of criminality. Shortly after obtaining from Mr. Meadows 9,000 pages of documents — including text messages and a PowerPoint presentation — the panel’s top Republican, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, read from the criminal code at a televised hearing.She suggested that Mr. Trump, by failing to stop the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, might have violated the federal law that prohibits obstructing an official proceeding before Congress.“We know hours passed with no action by the president to defend the Congress of the United States from an assault while we were trying to count electoral votes,” Ms. Cheney said, adding: “Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes?”Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?The question is one of the most significant to emerge in the first six months of the investigation.The panel has nine House members — including two Republicans — and is modeling itself on the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The committee plans to produce the authoritative report about Jan. 6.It plans to hold televised hearings early next year to lay out for the public how the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement helped lead to the Capitol riot. And it ultimately may propose changes to federal laws, toughening statutes to rein in a president’s conduct and overhauling the Electoral Count Act, which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to exploit in his attempt to cling to power.One of the challenges the committee faces is that so much has been reported about Mr. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power and the attacks themselves. So far, the numerous disclosures about the role of Mr. Trump, his aides and others who promoted the baseless idea that the election had been stolen from him have had little impact on his Republican support in Congress.But a credible criminal referral could provide the committee an opportunity to underscore the gravity of what happened while potentially subjecting Mr. Trump and others to intensified legal scrutiny.Although congressional investigators have no powers to charge a crime, their ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify allows them to reveal new details about events. At times, that process leads to witnesses disclosing potential criminality about themselves or others.When that occurs, Congress can make a criminal referral to the Justice Department — often in the form of a public letter — that can increase pressure on the department to open investigations. Sometimes members of Congress, amid partisan squabbling, overstate the evidence of criminality and make referrals to the Justice Department that are ignored because they appear political.Congressional investigations also create problems for witnesses because it is against the law to make false or misleading statements to Congress. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, indicted Roger J. Stone Jr. in 2019 for lying to congressional investigators examining Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and for obstructing that inquiry. Mr. Stone was ultimately convicted and then pardoned by Mr. Trump.Mr. Stone appeared before the Jan. 6 committee on Friday to face questions about his role in the “Stop the Steal” movement. But rather than answer questions, he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because he said he feared that Democrats would again accuse him of lying under oath.During his meeting with the Jan. 6 committee last week, Roger J. Stone Jr., right, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAt a hearing this month, Ms. Cheney suggested that the committee could subpoena Mr. Trump to answer questions and that criminal penalties would hang over his head if he lied.“Any communication Mr. Trump has with this committee will be under oath,” she said. “And if he persists in lying then, he will be accountable under the laws of this great nation and subject to criminal penalties for every false word he speaks.”Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the committee, said it was “certainly possible” that the panel would make criminal referrals before the investigation concluded.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 9The House investigation. More

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      Mark Meadows Agrees to Cooperate With Jan. 6 Attack Inquiry

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      President Donald J. Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has turned over documents and agreed to be deposed in the House’s inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack.WASHINGTON — Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under President Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to provide documents and sit for a deposition, the panel said on Tuesday, a notable reversal for a crucial witness in the inquiry.The change of stance for Mr. Meadows, who had previously refused to cooperate with the committee in line with a directive from Mr. Trump, came as the panel prepared to seek criminal contempt of Congress charges against a second witness who has defied one of its subpoenas. It marked a turnabout after weeks of private wrangling between the former chief of staff and the House committee over whether he would participate in the investigation and to what degree.Mr. Meadows, a former Republican congressman from North Carolina, is the highest-ranking White House official to cooperate in any way with the inquiry.“Mr. Meadows has been engaging with the select committee through his attorney,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the panel, said in a statement. “He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition.”Mr. Thompson indicated that he was withholding judgment about whether Mr. Meadows was willing to cooperate sufficiently, adding, “The committee will continue to assess his degree of compliance with our subpoena after the deposition.”Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, suggested that there were strict limits to his client’s willingness to participate in the inquiry.“As we have from the beginning, we continue to work with the select committee and its staff to see if we can reach an accommodation that does not require Mr. Meadows to waive executive privilege or to forfeit the longstanding position that senior White House aides cannot be compelled to testify before Congress,” Mr. Terwilliger said in a statement. “We appreciate the select committee’s openness to receiving voluntary responses on nonprivileged topics.”The deposition is expected to be private, as has been the panel’s practice with other witnesses.Mr. Meadows’s testimony is seen as key to the committee’s investigation because he was deeply involved in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and could provide crucial insight into what the president was doing and saying as the attack unfolded on Jan. 6. Mr. Meadows is believed to have spent considerable time by Mr. Trump’s side at the White House as throngs of the president’s supporters stormed the Capitol. Mr. Meadows is said to have tried to enlist Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter, to reason with her father during the rampage.In the weeks before the attack, Mr. Meadows repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories, according to emails provided to Congress, portions of which were reviewed by The New York Times. He contacted several state officials to encourage investigations into election fraud claims even after such allegations were dismissed by the courts. And he attended a meeting in late December with far-right Republican members of Congress who led the effort to challenge the electoral count on Jan. 6.Mr. Meadows also was in communication with organizers of the rally near the White House that preceded the violence, the committee has said.Among the panel’s questions for him are whether he was using a private cellphone to communicate on Jan. 6 and the location of his text messages from that day.CNN earlier reported that Mr. Meadows had reached a deal with the committee.It was not immediately clear how extensive his cooperation would be or which documents he had turned over, though Mr. Thompson said they contained “significant email traffic.” But investigators had a major incentive to negotiate a deal to sit down with him, in large part because they view him as central to the public’s understanding of how the events of Jan. 6 occurred.“We’re seeing a game of chess in many ways between the committee and Meadows,” said Jonathan D. Shaub, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who worked at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “The committee very much wants to hear from Meadows. He may know the most of any witness, so the committee is willing to give a little bit.”Members of the panel also believe that Mr. Meadows’s participation could be a strong signal to lower-ranking former White House staff members that they, too, should cooperate.Citing Mr. Trump’s claim of executive privilege, Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, Mr. Terwilliger, wrote to the committee on Nov. 10 saying that his client could not “in good conscience” provide testimony out of an “appreciation for our constitutional system and the separation of powers.” That stance was condemned by Mr. Thompson and the panel’s vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming. They accused Mr. Meadows of defying a lawful subpoena and said that they would consider pursuing contempt charges to enforce it.Mr. Thompson and Ms. Cheney called Mr. Trump’s privilege claims “spurious” and added that many of the matters they wished to discuss with Mr. Meadows were “not even conceivably subject to any privilege claim, even if there were one.”On Wednesday, the committee is expected to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official involved in Mr. Trump’s effort to upend the election, when it holds a voting session to recommend that the full House find him in criminal contempt.Understand the Claim of Executive Privilege in the Jan. 6. InquiryCard 1 of 8A key issue yet untested. More

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      Trump Justice Dept. Official Defies Request by Jan. 6 Panel

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      Jeffrey Clark, who aided in the former president’s efforts to overturn the election, appeared before the committee but would not answer substantive questions.WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s frenzied efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, refused to cooperate on Friday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, leading to a sharp rebuke from the committee’s chairman.The standoff between Mr. Clark and the committee is the second such confrontation since Congress began investigating the circumstances surrounding the Capitol violence, seeking information on Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the election. The House has already voted to find one Trump ally, Stephen K. Bannon, in criminal contempt of Congress for stonewalling the inquiry.“Mr. Clark’s complete failure to cooperate today is unacceptable,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. “As prescribed by the House rules, I have considered Mr. Clark’s claim of privilege and rejected it. He has a very short time to reconsider and cooperate fully. We need the information that he is withholding, and we are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable.”Mr. Clark appeared before the committee on Friday but delivered a letter saying he would not answer substantive questions. He cited attorney-client privilege protecting his conversations with Mr. Trump.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” Mr. Clark’s lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, wrote in a letter to the committee, which was reported earlier by Politico. “Mr. Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”Mr. Bannon also cited Mr. Trump’s directive for former aides and advisers to invoke immunity and refrain from turning over documents that might be protected under executive privilege in his refusal to cooperate. A federal judge expressed skepticism on Thursday about the merits of Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the committee seeking to block from release at least 770 pages of documents related to the Capitol riot.Under federal law, any person summoned as a congressional witness who refuses to comply can face a misdemeanor charge that carries a fine of $100 to $100,000 and a jail sentence of one month to one year.Mr. Thompson suggested such a penalty could await Mr. Clark, once a little-known official who repeatedly pushed his colleagues at the Justice Department to help Mr. Trump undo his loss.The committee has issued a subpoena seeking testimony and records from Mr. Clark, a focus that indicates it is deepening its scrutiny of the root causes of the attack, which disrupted a congressional session called to count the electoral votes formalizing President Biden’s victory.Mr. Thompson contrasted Mr. Clark’s refusal to cooperate with the actions of Jeffrey A. Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the Trump administration, and previously sat for a lengthy interview with the committee..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“His refusal to answer questions about the former president’s attempt to use the Department of Justice to overturn the election is in direct contrast to his supervisors at the department,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement. “It’s astounding that someone who so recently held a position of public trust to uphold the Constitution would now hide behind vague claims of privilege by a former president, refuse to answer questions about an attack on our democracy and continue an assault on the rule of law.”Mr. MacDougald’s letter argued that Mr. Clark had nothing to do with the events of Jan. 6.“He has informed me he worked from home that day to avoid wrestling with potential street closures to get to and from his office at Main Justice,” the letter said. “Nor did Mr. Clark have any responsibilities to oversee security at the Capitol or have the ability to deploy any Department of Justice personnel or resources there.”But the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a recent report there was credible evidence that Mr. Clark was involved in other efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, citing his proposal to deliver a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging them to delay certification of election results.The Senate committee also said Mr. Clark recommended holding a news conference announcing that the Justice Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud, in line with Mr. Trump’s repeated demands, despite a lack of evidence of any fraud. Both proposals were rejected by senior leaders in the department.The New York Times reported in January that Mr. Clark also discussed with Mr. Trump a plan to oust Mr. Rosen, and wield the department’s power to force state lawmakers in Georgia to overturn its presidential election results. Mr. Clark denied the report, which was based on the accounts of four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.Mr. Clark’s subpoena is one of 19 issued by the committee. The panel has interviewed more than 150 witnesses so far, according to a person with knowledge of its activities. More

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      Jan. 6 Panel Moves to Recommend Criminal Charges Against Bannon

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      The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot will vote next week to recommend a criminal contempt of Congress charge against Stephen K. Bannon after he defied a subpoena.WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said the committee would move next week to recommend that Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to President Donald J. Trump, face criminal contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with its investigation.The move would escalate what is shaping up to be a major legal battle between the select committee and the former president over access to crucial witnesses and documents that could shed light on what precipitated the assault, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’s formal count of the votes that confirmed President Biden’s election.The fight will test how far Congress will be able to go in pressing forward on the investigation in the face of stonewalling by the former president. Should the House ultimately approve the referral, as expected, the Justice Department would decide whether to accept it and pursue a criminal case.So far, the Biden administration has taken the unusual step of refusing to honor Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege, which can shield White House deliberations or documents involving the president from disclosure.Mr. Bannon informed the panel last week that he would defy a subpoena, in accordance with a directive from Mr. Trump, who has told former aides and advisers that they should not cooperate because the information requested is privileged.“Mr. Bannon has declined to cooperate with the select committee and is instead hiding behind the former president’s insufficient, blanket and vague statements regarding privileges he has purported to invoke,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement.The committee, which is controlled by Democrats, will consider the referral on Tuesday and is all but certain to agree to it. That would send the criminal contempt citation to the full House, where Democrats have the votes to approve it. The matter would then be sent to the Justice Department with a recommendation that officials pursue a legal case against Mr. Bannon.The cumbersome procedure reflects a challenging reality that Democrats are grappling with as they delve deeper into the Jan. 6 inquiry. Congress is a legislative body, not a law enforcement entity, and its ability to compel cooperation and punish wrongdoing on its own is inherently limited. Its investigative tools are only as powerful as the courts decide, and the process of waging legal fights to secure crucial information and witnesses is likely to be a prolonged one.Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Bannon, said in a letter to the committee on Wednesday that his client would not produce documents or testimony “until such time as you reach an agreement with President Trump” on claims of executive privilege “or receive a court ruling.”The case of Mr. Bannon is particularly tricky because he has not been an executive branch official since he left the White House in 2017, and any conversations he may have had with Mr. Trump pertaining to Jan. 6 are likely to have fallen outside the former president’s official duties.No court has definitively said whether conversations with private citizens are covered by executive privilege, which is generally extended in relation to conversations or documents that pertain to presidential duties.“Privilege for a private citizen, who was potentially talking about things outside of the president’s official duties, has never been tested in court,” said Jonathan D. Shaub, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who worked at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.Even as it moves aggressively against Mr. Bannon, the panel has taken a different approach to two other advisers to Mr. Trump who have so far declined to comply with its subpoenas but have not stonewalled the inquiry entirely.Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, and Kash Patel, a former Pentagon chief of staff, were also summoned to sit for depositions this week, but they are not yet facing contempt citations for failing to do so.The committee said it was in communication with Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel, and a person with knowledge of those talks said that lawmakers were likely to grant them a delay before testifying. Dan Scavino Jr., a former White House deputy chief of staff under Mr. Trump, was served with his subpoena last week.For years while Mr. Trump was president, administration officials refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, thumbing their noses at Democratic lawmakers on matters from election interference to census questions. Democrats, in turn, opted not to try to press their claims in court, concluding that the process would be too time-consuming to be effective, particularly in the case of Mr. Trump’s impeachment.Now that he has left office, Democrats and Mr. Biden’s Justice Department must decide how aggressive they want to be in waging legal battles to insist on congressional prerogatives. That includes the question of whether to try to compel cooperation in the investigation from Mr. Trump himself, which Mr. Thompson has repeatedly said was possible, but which raises legal and logistical challenges that many Democrats privately say make it unlikely.Under federal law, any person summoned as a congressional witness who refuses to comply can face a misdemeanor charge that carries a fine of $100 to $100,000 and a jail sentence of one month to one year.But the Justice Department has generally refrained from prosecuting executive branch officials when they have refused to comply with subpoenas, and Congress has voted to hold them in contempt, according to a 2019 Congressional Research Service report.Justice Department legal opinions from 1984 and 2008 say that the department will not prosecute officials for complying with a president’s formal assertion of privilege over conversations or documents.In 2015, the Justice Department under President Barack Obama said it would not seek criminal contempt charges against Lois Lerner, a former I.R.S. official; and in 2019, the department under Mr. Trump made a similar decision, rebuffing Congress on behalf of Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.The last person charged with criminal contempt of Congress, Rita M. Lavelle, a former federal environmental official under President Ronald Reagan, was found not guilty in 1983 of failing to appear at a congressional subcommittee hearing. She was later sentenced to jail for lying to Congress.Jeffrey S. Robbins, a former federal prosecutor and a partner at the law firm Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, said under different circumstances, the committee might face an uphill battle enforcing the subpoena: if the Justice Department were still under Mr. Trump, Congress were in Republican hands, or there were a reasonable argument — such as protecting national security — for invoking executive privilege. In this case, Mr. Robbins said, none of those circumstances existed.“It’s open contempt of a subpoena without an apparent basis,” said Mr. Robbins, who teaches a course on congressional investigations at Brown University. He called the invocation of executive privilege “patently bogus,” adding, “It’s difficult to imagine it will not be referred for prosecution.”Once Congress votes to hold Mr. Bannon in contempt, the next step would be to refer the matter to the U.S. attorney in Washington. If the White House determines that no claim of executive privilege applies, the U.S. attorney’s office would then decide whether to bring the case before a grand jury, in consultation with top Justice Department officials.But if Mr. Bannon were to sue over the issue, the Justice Department would most likely follow past practice and wait for the courts to resolve the lawsuit before bringing the contempt charge before a grand jury, Mr. Shaub said.In letters transmitting its subpoenas to Mr. Bannon and the three former Trump administration officials, the committee said it was seeking information about the president’s actions in the run-up to and during the riot.Mr. Bannon reportedly communicated with Mr. Trump on Dec. 30 and urged him to focus his efforts on Jan. 6, the committee said. He was also present at a meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington the day before the violence, when plans were discussed to try to overturn the results of the election the next day, the committee stated. Mr. Bannon was quoted as saying, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”On Wednesday, the committee also issued a subpoena to Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was involved in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The committee’s action came the same day it heard lengthy closed-door testimony from Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, who has testified publicly and privately about the final days of the Trump administration, when the former president was pressing top officials to use the Justice Department to advance false claims of election fraud.In private testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Rosen said that Mr. Clark had told him that Mr. Trump was getting ready to fire Mr. Rosen and endorse Mr. Clark’s strategy of pursuing conspiracy theories about the hacking of voting booths and fraud.“Well, I don’t get to be fired by someone who works for me,” Mr. Rosen said he told Mr. Clark. More

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      Liz Cheney Promoted to No. 2 Post on Jan. 6 Committee

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      The move was unusual in the House, where the majority party typically gives such roles to one of its own. The Wyoming Republican has been a vocal critic of Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — House Democrats leading the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob named Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Thursday as the committee’s vice chairwoman, elevating the role of a Republican who has been a vocal critic of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.The announcement effectively makes Ms. Cheney the special committee’s second-ranking member, an unusual move for the majority party in the House, which typically grants that position to one of its own. But her appointment to the panel has been part of a break with convention from the start, given that Democrats nominated her and another Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, in a bid to bring bipartisan credibility to an investigation that most other G.O.P. lawmakers had denounced and worked to thwart.“Representative Cheney has demonstrated again and again her commitment to getting answers about Jan. 6, ensuring accountability, and doing whatever it takes to protect democracy for the American people,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, said in a statement announcing the move. “Her leadership and insights have shaped the early work of the select committee and this appointment underscores the bipartisan nature of this effort.”It comes as the special committee is ramping up its investigation into the violence that engulfed the Capitol as supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the building in his name, brutalizing police officers and delaying for hours the official counting of electoral votes to formalize President Biden’s victory.The committee sent record preservation demands this week to 35 technology firms naming hundreds of people whose records they might want to review, including 11 of Mr. Trump’s most ardent allies in Congress, according to several people familiar with the documents who were not authorized to speak about its contents.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, has threatened to retaliate against any company that complies with the request.Mr. McCarthy led the charge to strip Ms. Cheney of her Republican leadership post over her continued denunciation of Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This week, Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona and leader of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, circulated a letter calling on Mr. McCarthy to expel both Ms. Cheney, a staunch conservative whose father served as vice president, and Mr. Kinzinger from the Republican conference..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Congresswoman Cheney and Congressman Kinzinger are two spies for the Democrats that we currently invite to the meetings, despite our inability to trust them,” Mr. Biggs wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Biggs, who promoted false claims of widespread election rigging in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, is among the Republicans whose social media and phone records the select committee is seeking to preserve. In his letter, he proposed changing rules for the Republican caucus to expel any member who accepts a committee assignment from Democrats, a step that Mr. McCarthy has suggested in the past would be appropriate.“We cannot trust these members to sit in our Republican conference meetings while we plan our defense against the Democrats,” Mr. Biggs wrote.Ms. Cheney said in a statement that she was pleased to accept the post as the committee’s No. 2.“Every member of this committee is dedicated to conducting a nonpartisan, professional, and thorough investigation of all the relevant facts regarding Jan. 6 and the threat to our Constitution we faced that day,” Ms. Cheney said. “I have accepted the position of vice chair of the committee to assure that we achieve that goal. We owe it to the American people to investigate everything that led up to, and transpired on, Jan. 6th. We will not be deterred by threats or attempted obstruction and we will not rest until our task is complete.” More

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      McCarthy Threatens Technology Firms That Comply With Riot Inquiry

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      The top House Republican said his party would retaliate against any company that cooperated with an order to preserve the phone and social media records of G.O.P. lawmakers.WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, has threatened to retaliate against any company that complies with the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, after the panel asked dozens of firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress who pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Mr. McCarthy’s warning was an escalation of his efforts to thwart a full accounting of the deadly attack at the Capitol carried out by a pro-Trump mob, and his latest attempt to insulate the former president and Republican lawmakers from scrutiny of any ties to the violence. It came after he led the G.O.P. opposition to the creation of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the riot, and then pulled five Republican congressmen from the select committee that Democrats created on their own, boycotting the proceedings.In preservation orders the special committee sent to 35 technology firms this week, members of the panel included the names of hundreds of people whose records they might want to review, among them some of Donald J. Trump’s most ardent allies in Congress, according to several people familiar with the documents who were not authorized to speak about their contents.The 11 Republicans are Representatives Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jody B. Hice of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.The preservation demands were accompanied by a statement that said the committee was merely “gathering facts, not alleging wrongdoing by any individual.” But the inclusion of the Republicans’ names, reported earlier by CNN, indicated that the panel planned to scrutinize any role they may have played in fueling the violence.“These are the individuals who have been publicly supportive of Jan. 6 and the people who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6,” Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the panel’s chairman, said in an interview.“We need to find out exactly what their level of participation in this event was,” he said. “If you helped raise money, if you provided misinformation to people, if you served on a planning committee — whatever your role in Jan. 6, I think the public has a right to know.”The panel has not asked to preserve the records of Mr. McCarthy, who has said he had a tense phone call with Mr. Trump as the mob laid siege to the Capitol, but Mr. Thompson said the top Republican’s name could yet be added.Mr. Thompson said Mr. McCarthy’s protestations were “typical of somebody who may or may not have been involved in Jan. 6 and doesn’t want that information to become public.”On Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy said Republicans would “not forget” and “hold accountable” those tech companies that preserve records sought by the committee. His remarks followed denunciations of the committee’s work by Representative Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, who has called the panel’s tactics “authoritarian,” and Mr. Trump, who has called it a “partisan sham.”Ms. Greene threatened on Fox News that telecommunications companies that cooperated with the investigation would be “shut down.”Mr. McCarthy asserted, without citing any law, that it would be illegal for the technology companies to cooperate with the inquiry, even though congressional investigations have obtained phone records before. He said that if his party won control of the House, it would use its power to punish any that did.“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said he was stunned by Mr. McCarthy’s remarks, describing them as akin to obstructing an investigation.“He is leveling threats against people cooperating with a congressional investigation,” Mr. Raskin said. “That’s an astounding turn of events. Why would the minority leader of the House of Representatives not be interested in our ability to get all of the facts in relation to the Jan. 6 attack?”Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and University of Michigan law professor, called Mr. McCarthy’s claims “baseless,” noting that the panel had not requested the content of any communication.“He is falsely portraying the committee as overreaching so that he can protect his own political interests, to the detriment of Congress’s ability to do its job and the public trust in our institutions of government,” she said.In the past week, the select committee has ramped up its work, taking three wide-ranging investigative steps: a records demand to seven federal agencies focusing in part on any ties Mr. Trump may have had to the attack’s planning or execution; a document demand to 15 social media companies for material about efforts to overturn the election and domestic violent extremists who may have been involved; and the record preservation orders including the Republican representatives.The 11 Republicans include lawmakers who spearheaded the effort to challenge the election outcome in Congress on Jan. 6 and those who played at least some role in the “Stop the Steal” effort to protest the results, including promoting rallies around the country and the one in Washington whose attendees attacked the Capitol.Some of the lawmakers named in the order have continued to publicly spread the election lies that inspired the riot, and to allude to the possibility of more violence to come. Mr. Cawthorn falsely claimed on Sunday that the election had been “rigged” and “stolen,” telling a crowd in Franklin, N.C., that if elections were not safeguarded in the future, it could result in “bloodshed.”The select committee has been meeting twice a week, even during Congress’s summer recess, as its members plan their next steps. Mr. Thompson said two more hearings were in the works, one to dig deeper into the pressure campaign Mr. Trump and his allies started to overturn President Biden’s victory, and another to explore who encouraged militia and extremist groups to come to Washington before the assault.Representative Bennie G. Thompson, right, and members of the select committee have ramped up their work in the past week. Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“There’s a concern on the committee about the executive branch leaning on state elected officials to change the outcome of the election,” Mr. Thompson said. “There’s concern about the identification with domestic terrorist organizations and their participation and encouragement to participate in the Jan. 6 march and insurrection.”Last week, the panel sought communications among top Trump administration officials about attempts to place politically loyal personnel in senior positions in the run-up to the attack; the planning and funding of pro-Trump rallies on Jan. 5 and 6; and other attempts to stop or slow the process of Mr. Trump handing over the presidency to Mr. Biden.It demanded records of communications between the White House and Ali Alexander, who publicized the “Stop the Steal” rallies, as well as Tom Van Flein, Mr. Gosar’s chief of staff.Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a committee member, said the requests were “broad” by design as the panel sought to produce a “comprehensive report.” He said they could be expanded to include more members of Congress if evidence emerges to suggest it is necessary.“We know that there are members who were involved in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally; we know that there are members who had direct communications with the president while the attack on the Capitol was going on,” he said. “There are any number of members who have very pertinent information.”On Friday, the panel sent letters to 15 social media companies — including sites where misinformation about election fraud spread, such as the pro-Trump website theDonald.win — seeking any documents in their possession pertaining to efforts to overturn the election and any domestic violent extremists associated with the Jan. 6 rally and attack.The committee had already asked for records on extremist groups and militias that were present at the Capitol that day, including QAnon, the Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. A person familiar with the committee’s discussions said its members intended to investigate more deeply plans among militia groups to coordinate.At least 10 suspected militia extremists attended paramilitary training in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina before the breach, according to court documents. Suspected domestic violent extremists also “coordinated efforts to bring tactical equipment to the event, presumably in anticipation of violence,” according to an April homeland security analysis obtained by The New York Times through a public records request filed by the group Property of the People.“There were undoubtedly insurrectionist groups that were dead-set on committing violence,” Mr. Raskin said. “If you listen to their chatter post-Jan. 6, it’s all abut how close they came, and next time they will be carrying arms.”The records preservation request delivered on Monday asked telecommunications companies to keep on file information about cell tower locations, text messages and call logs, and information uploaded to cloud storage systems.Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of the committee, emphasized that the request was “an investigation, not an accusation.”“We’ll see what we find out,” she said. “It’s fair to say you didn’t have 10,000 people just happen to show up and attack Capitol Police officers, maim them and threaten to kill the vice president and members of Congress just because they felt like it. There was a reason, there was a structure to this, and we need to uncover everything about that.” More