Trump taps firm to handle his Jan. 6 committee subpoena

Oct 20, 2022

Former President Donald Trump has hired a firm to engage with the Jan. 6 select committee on its forthcoming subpoena of him, POLITICO has learned.

The firm, The Dhillon Law Group, already represents multiple witnesses who have appeared before the committee, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump ally Seb Gorka and Women for America First co-founder Amy Kremer. A person familiar with the situation said it is now being tasked with negotiating the terms of the Trump subpoena, which the committee voted to issue last week.

The committee’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), has not yet issued the document to Trump or his attorneys.

Harmeet Dhillon, the firm’s managing partner, is a national Republican committeewoman from California. She has helmed litigation related to other conservative causes including pushing back on policies that shut down schools, churches and businesses during the Covid pandemic. Dhillon has also been critical of previous select committee and Justice Department grand jury subpoenas to her other clients.

A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.

The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), indicated that the subpoena would demand Trump’s testimony and also relevant documents about his involvement in the events that preceded the Jan. 6 attack by a pro-Trump mob on the Capitol. Among the remaining questions is when and how it will be delivered.

“I think we have made it clear … [the subpoena] will be coming,” panel member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Wednesday evening on CNN. “Nothing’s changed on that front. And we will see where we go from here.”

The committee has spent recent months detailing its case that Trump is singularly responsible for the violence that occurred that day, fomenting his supporters’ fury by stoking false claims of election fraud and engineering multiple efforts to subvert Joe Biden’s victory and disrupt the transfer of power.

While Trump has publicly flirted with the prospect of voluntarily appearing before the select committee, it is unlikely that the panel could force him to appear if he opts to challenge their subpoena. Only one former president has been subpoenaed by lawmakers in the last 150 years. That was Harry Truman in 1953, and he declined to appear, citing a potential encroachment on the separation of powers.

Any litigation over the issue could take years to resolve, and the select committee is set to dissolve by Jan. 3, 2023 when the current Congress ends.

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