Capitol riot committee subpoenas Trump White House political director and five other January 6 rally planners

The House select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection has issued subpoenas to ex-White House political director Brian Jack and five other Trumpworld figures involved in the planning of the rally on the Ellipse which immediately preceded the worst attack on the Capitol since the 1814 Burning of Washington.

Mr Jack, who was former president Donald Trump’s director of political affairs on 6 January, was reportedly the White House official charged with lining up members of congress to speak at the “Save America” rally which featured Mr Trump as a headliner.

One such speaker, Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, told attendees that 6 January – the day Congress was set to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral college victory – was the “day American patriots start taking down names and kicking a**” just hours before a mob stormed the Capitol in hopes of stopping the joint session of Congress at which the House of Representatives and Senate were to complete that task.

Two other subpoena recipients are Robert “Bobby” Peede Jr and Max Miller, both of whom served in Mr Trump’s White House as “advance” staffers in charge of planning and coordinating presidential events. Mr Miller is currently running as a Trump-backed candidate for the Ohio House seat held by Rep Anthony Gonzalez, one of the Republicans who voted in favor of Mr Trump’s second impeachment.

Both Messrs Peele and Miller met with Mr Trump on 4 January 2021, just days before the rally and riot that followed, according to a letter to Mr Miller from select committee chair Bennie Thompson.

According to the letter, Mr Miller was also responsible for intervening with National Park Service officials to gain permission to build the “Save America” rally stage from which Mr Trump, Mr Brooks and other spoke in the center of the Ellipse, which required the park service to ignore a policy which ordinarily prohibits placing structures in the sight line from the White House’s Truman balcony to the Jefferson Memorial.

Another trio of subpoena recipients are reportedly tied to the planning of the 6 January rally itself, including Bryan Lewis, whose name appeared on a permit for a rally outside the US Capitol, and whose permit application said the rally was meant to “urge Congress to nullify votes from states that made illegal changes to voting rules during their elections”; Phyllis Schlafly; Eagles president Ed Martin; and Moms for America founder Kimberly Fletcher.

Mr Martin, a failed Missouri congressional and attorney general candidate who has served as chief of staff to former Missouri governor Matt Blunt and as the chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was also involved in funding the “Stop the Steal” protests which preceded the Capitol attack.

In a statement, Mr Thompson said these latest six witnesses to receive subpoenas “apparently worked to stage the rallies on January 5th and 6th, and some appeared to have had direct communication with the former President regarding the rally at the Ellipse directly preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol”.

“The Select Committee expects these witnesses to join the hundreds of individuals who have already cooperated with our investigation as we work to provide the American people with answers about what happened on January 6th and ensure nothing like that day ever happens again,” he said.