Lawmakers investigating the deadly 2021 attack on the US Capitol said Thursday they will ask the House of Representatives to charge two men close to former President Donald Trump for refusing to testify.
Former commerce director Peter Navarro and deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino were subpoenaed to appear before the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection but did not appear, investigators said.
The committee, led by a Democratic lawmaker with a Republican deputy, said they would meet Monday to consider a recommendation that the House cite the duo for contempt of Congress.
This decision is seen as a formality, as the committee is unified in its goal of enforcing subpoenas and acted on previous recommendations to subpoena senior Trump advisers Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon, as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would vote soon after to refer Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for consideration of indictment. If convicted, they would likely spend several months in prison.
Thousands of Trump supporters, many associated with ultra-nationalist and white supremacist groups, stormed the Capitol last year in an attempt to prevent President Joe Biden’s electoral victory from being certified.
They had been egged on by Trump, whose fiery speech that day falsely claiming voter fraud was the culmination of months of baseless claims about a race he lost cleanly to Biden.
Scavino was in charge of social media for the former president and the two were in the White House together when the mob began their attack, according to the committee.
Meanwhile, Navarro, who had already issued a statement indicating that he would not comply with his subpoena, has boasted of his role in organizing the Trump campaign’s effort to annul the election result.
The January 6 panel is expected to begin wrapping up the investigation in the coming weeks as it prepares to present its findings in public hearings, scheduled for May.
The referrals for Bannon and Meadows were approved by the full House, but the Justice Department has so far only made progress in prosecuting Bannon, who is now fighting criminal charges in court.
