House Capitol attack panel ready to urge prosecution of Trump aides, says Schiff - The Guardian

The House select committee investigating the deadly assault on the US Capitol on 6 January is prepared to urge federal prosecution of former aides to Donald Trump who refuse to comply with subpoenas, a key panel member said.

The 6 January committee, the California congressman said, “wants to make sure that these witnesses come in and testify, and we are prepared to go forward and urge the justice department to criminally prosecute anyone who does not do their lawful duty”.

Observers pointed out that executive privilege applies to communications involving the president the White House wishes to keep confidential – but though Trump was in power on 6 January, Bannon was not working for him.

Referring to a Senate judiciary committee majority report this week about how Trump pressured his acting attorney general before the Capitol attack, Schiff said: “We saw Grassley [the senior Republican on the judiciary committee] in Iowa yesterday, unable to condemn the president’s effort to to get the justice department to overturn the election.”.

“It’s these personal capitulations that are putting our country at risk,” Schiff said, adding that the Republican party “is now an autocratic cult around Donald Trump … not interested in governing”.

Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, said the American people should see Trump aides testify under oath.

“When you consider that these were Trump appointees,” Whitehouse said, of events before the 6 January rally outlined in the Senate judiciary committee report, “people who are willing to go right to the chalk line, and in my view, even over it, when those folks saw this as outlandish and illegal and something that they don’t quit before they participate in, that shows how berserk this had gotten.”.

Referring to Jeffrey Clark, a senior justice department lawyer whose willingness to help Trump was outlined in the Senate report, Whitehouse said: “We then go on to the further question of, ‘OK, how was this organised.