Judge blocks Trump effort to subpoena Jan. 6 documents

A federal judge Monday rejected former President Trump’s efforts to subpoena information related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that the former president had accused government officials of failing to preserve, determining the request amounted to a “fishing expedition.”

An October filing from Trump repeated a disputed claim that the former House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot failed to turn over all the evidence it collected. Trump sought to subpoena Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who led the nine-member panel, as well as several other government officials over what Trump’s attorneys deemed “missing materials.”

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case related to Trump’s actions to stay in power, said that he failed to meet the legal bar for subpoenaing the officials.

“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,’” she wrote.

Trump also sought to compel cooperation from Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chairman, who has said he did not receive the entirety of the panel’s records. And Trump tried to subpoena the national archivist and attorneys to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. 

“President Trump is fully entitled to seek the Missing Records by subpoena. It is also equally important to determine if these records have been lost, destroyed, or altered,” Trump’s lawyer’s wrote last month.

Thompson has said the committee turned over all required work products and official records — including transcripts of all witness interviews but not all video recordings that weren’t ultimately used in their hearings.

“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. Accordingly, and contrary to your letter’s implication, the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions,” he wrote in August.

He also praised the panel’s “unprecedented transparency,” noting that a massive tranche of the committee’s records were shared publicly ahead of its dissolution.