Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 14 involved in false electors scheme

The House Jan. 6 Select Committee said Friday that it is subpoenaing more than two dozen people involved in the scheme following the 2020 election where supporters of former President Trump submitted fake Electoral College certificates claiming he had won in various battleground states that had gone to President Biden.

The panel announced that it had issued subpoenas to 14 individuals from seven states who had filed the fake documents with the National Archives.

“The Select Committee is seeking information about attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the planning and coordination of efforts to send false slates of electors to the National Archives,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the select committee, said in a statement. “We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme. We encourage them to cooperate with the Select Committee’s investigation to get answers about January 6th for the American people and help ensure nothing like that day ever happens again.”

The group of people who were subpoenaed appear to all be state GOP officials and activists from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Earlier this week, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CNN that federal prosecutors were also examining the “alternate electors” effort.

“We’ve received those referrals. Our prosecutors are looking at those and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations,” Monaco told the network on Tuesday.

In letters sent out Friday, the select committee told the subjects of the subpoenas that it is investigating who was involved in the scheme, citing media reports that the group had met on Dec. 14, 2020 to cast their “votes.”

“Your delegation of purported electors for former President Trump and former Vice President Pence then sent an alleged ‘Certificate of the Votes’ of the purported electors to Congress for consideration by former Vice President Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” reads one letter addressed to Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer. “The existence of these purported alternate-elector votes was used as a justification to delay or block the certification of the election during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”

The committee said it is seeking answers about who had overseen the scheme.