Judge denies Trump’s bid to subpoena House Jan. 6 committee documents: ‘Fishing expedition’

Former President Donald Trump’s effort to subpoena information related to the House investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol riot was blocked Monday by a federal judge, who ruled that the request seemed like nothing more than a “fishing expedition.” 

Trump and his legal team had sought to subpoena Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House Jan. 6 select committee, and other government officials over allegedly “missing materials” from the panel’s archives. 

“The broad scope of the records that Defendant seeks, and his vague description of their potential relevance, resemble less ‘a good faith effort to obtain identified evidence’ than they do ‘a general ‘fishing expedition’ that attempts to use the [Rule 17(c) subpoena] as a discovery device,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her order denying the subpoena request.

In August, Thompson noted that the committee did not keep records of materials that were not used during the panel’s hearings or featured in its publications, leading Trump’s lawyers to question whether they have been “lost, destroyed, or altered.” 

“The Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities,” Thompson wrote.

“Accordingly, and contrary to your letter’s implication, the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions,” Thompson wrote in August in response to accusations from Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) that some records were missing. 

Loudermilk, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight for the Committee on House Administration, is leading an investigation into the Jan. 6 committee’s work. 

Trump had sought to subpoena the Georgia Republican as well, along with the archivist of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber and General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security Johnathan Meyer as part of his denied request.

The select committee’s final report, released last December, accused the former president of engaging in a criminal “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the report stated. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

The panel, in another notable conclusion, found that Trump and his allies engaged in some 200 acts targeting state legislators or state and local election officials in attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.

The 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner was hit with a four-count indictment in August on allegations that he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case, for which the trial is expected to start on March 4, 2024, in Washington, DC.