The House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol summoned Donald Trump this Friday to appear and testify about it on November 14 and before, on the 4th, deliver documents about the blow.
The commission, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, claims to have "overwhelming evidence" that Trump "personally orchestrated" the attempt to overturn his own defeat in the 2020 elections, including by spreading false accusations of widespread voter fraud, "trying to corrupt" the Justice Department and pressuring state officials, members of Congress and his own vice president.
Congressional investigators have prevented the former president's possible testimony from taking place, if he agrees to appear, before the mid-term legislative elections on November 8.
The summons launched this Friday formalizes and shapes, in very harsh terms, the unanimous decision that the committee agreed on October 13 in its last public hearing before those elections.
In response to the announcement by congressional investigators, Trump said earlier that day that the committee is a "total failure"; he accused its members of "knowingly" failing to investigate the "massive election fraud" he insists on falsely denouncing, and wondered why he wasn't asked to testify months ago instead of waiting until the last minute.
In the summons letter to the former president, signed by the Democratic chairman of the committee, Bennie Thompson, and the Republican vice-president, Liz Cheney, those responsible for the parliamentary inquiry say they recognize that "a summons to a former president is a significant and historic action." Therefore, they add, "we do not take this action lightly."
To make a decision on the requirements of the parliamentary committee, Trump and his lawyers will have to measure what can be more damaging to him: appear or, surely invoking the alleged privileges of a former president who has invoked other times, ignore the summons. In the latter case, the Republican leader could be exposed to an accusation of contempt like the one that this Friday has cost his former adviser Steve Bannon a four-year prison sentence.
Trump can also go to testify and benefit from the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, on the right not to answer incriminating questions before any court.
It also remains to be seen if the former president provides the documents that the commission requests in order to prove the personal communications that he had with members of Congress and with leaders of the extremist groups that participated in the bloody insurrection around the assault.
