Bill Stepien, President Trump’s former campaign manager, is one of the witnesses set to speak before a House committee hearing on January 6th, with the focus shifting to Trump’s efforts to spread his claims about a rigged election.
Stepien was called to give a public statement and was served with a subpoena.
Stepien, a longstanding Trump supporter, is now a major campaign consultant to Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed House candidate in Wyoming’s Republican primary, who is running against Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair and a vocal opponent of the former president.
Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, said that the committee’s decision to call Stepien was influenced by politics.
Members of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot claimed on Sunday that they have unearthed enough evidence for the Justice Department to consider an extraordinary criminal prosecution of Trump for attempting to rig the 2020 election results.
Rep. Adam Schiff said during the hearings that the department should “examine any credible accusation of criminal behavior on the part of Donald Trump.”
‘There are specific acts, portions of these many lines of attempt to overturn the election that I don’t see evidence the Justice Department is examining,’ Schiff, D-Calif., who also chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said.
Last week, the committee held its first public hearing, with members laying out their case against Trump, demonstrating how the defeated president continued to push false claims of a rigged election despite multiple advisers telling him otherwise, and how he intensified an extraordinary scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Additional evidence will be released this week in hearings that will show how Trump and some of his advisers engaged in a “massive effort” to spread misinformation, pressured the Justice Department to accept his false claims, and urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject state electors and block the vote certification on January 6, 2021.
BJay Pak, Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor, resigned on January 4, 2021, a day after an audio recording surfaced in which Trump called him a “never-Trumper,” and Chris Stirewalt, Fox News’ former political editor, are also on the list of Monday’s witnesses.
The majority of persons interrogated in the probe are doing so willingly, according to the committee, though some have requested that their subpoenas be made public.
During last week’s hearing, filmmaker Nick Quested, who provided documentary footage of the attack, said he had gotten a subpoena to appear.
Members of the committee said they will offer compelling proof that’multiple’ Republican congressmen, including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., had asked Trump for a pardon, which would shield him from punishment.
Perry denied doing so on Friday, calling the claim a “absolute, shameless, and soulless lie.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, stated, “We’re not going to throw charges or say things without facts or evidence.”