Donald Trump sues January 6 Committee to block subpoena

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday in an attempt to stop the Home Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault from subpoenaing him, NBC News reported.

The subpoena was previously ordered by the committee in an effort to compel Trump to testify before them, in addition to present documents associated to Jan. 6. Nevertheless, Trump’s lawsuit, filed within the U.S. District Court in South Florida, seeks to invalidate the subpoena and cease it from being enforced.

Attorneys for Trump wrote within the lawsuit that the committee had no constitutional authority to subpoena a former president, and claimed he had “absolute testimonial immunity” from Congress. The court should now determine if Congress has the ability to compel presidential testimony.

USA Todayreported that there’s some historic precedent, noting that former Presidents John Tyler and John Quincy Adams had each been subjected to subpoenas associated to a congressional investigation in 1846, and each had cooperated with the order.

Beyond this subpoena, the fact that Trump refuses to cooperate is exclusive in American history, USA Today noted, as each sitting and former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress. This consists of former President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, former President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and former President Gerald Ford in 1974. Former Presidents Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Harry Truman moreover all testified after leaving office.

That is the second subpoena from the committee that the former president has fought, beforehand battling an effort to seize his administration’s documents from the National Archives.