Nov 22, 2021, 6:39pm.
A House panel investigating the Capitol riot issued subpoenas to conspiratorial radio host Alex Jones and ex-Trump advisor Roger Stone on Monday, as lawmakers look at the pro-Trump rallies that took place immediately before the attack on the Capitol building.
Alex Jones, the founder of right-wing media group Infowars, addresses a crowd of protesters.
The images are from the same company.
Lawmakers said that Jones helped organize and raise money for a fiery rally outside the White House that featured a speech by Trump immediately before a mob storming the Capitol.
The committee cited reports that Stone spoke at a rally one day before the Capitol riot, was scheduled to speak again on January 6 and used members of the far-right Oathkeepers group for personal security in Washington, D.C.
Budowich was subpoenaed by the lawmakers because he was involved in a campaign to encourage people to attend a rally outside the White House.
Bennie Thompson said in a statement that they need to know who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events.
The January 6 committee is interested in the pre-riot rallies. In September, the panel subpoenaed almost a dozen organizers of the January 6 rally outside the White House, during which Trump encouraged his supporters to march to Capitol Hill and fight like hell to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's electoral college win.
The key background.
The January 6 committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, asked dozens of Trump allies and ex-staffers to testify about the Capitol riot and the months of baseless voter fraud allegations that preceded it. The investigation has faced obstacles from Trump, who believes that many of the documents it seeks are protected by executive privilege, a legal doctrine that allows presidents to keep some internal communications secret. An appeals court temporarily blocked the release of some executive branch records after Trump filed a lawsuit to stop them from being turned over.
Some of the witnesses on the January 6 committee have ignored their subpoenas because of Trump's executive privilege claim. The Justice Department charged Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress after he refused to testify. The committee threatened to recommend contempt for the White House chief of staff MarkMeadows after he claimed he was unable to testify, and lawmakers said they would weigh "strong measures" against the former DOJ official who refused to cooperate.
