'We're not going to play these games': House riot committee member serves notice to subpoenaed Trump aides
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning with host Ali Velshi, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) left no doubt that the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot will use every legal tool in the box to compel members of Donald Trump's inner circle to appear before his committee and reveal what led up to the insurrection that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
Admitting he fully expects Trump's associates to attempt to avoid appearing, the Maryland Democrat warned them not to "try the patience" of the committee members.
"I want to start by understanding this concept of criminal referrals because most of us will never be subpoenaed to Congress so we won't really know what are you supposed to do and what does the threat of criminal referrals mean?" host Velshi prompted.
"Those are two different things," Raskin explained. "The criminal referral is if our select committee on January 6th comes in possession of evidence related by criminal conduct by people that the Department of Justice is currently unaware of, we will refer it to them. In other words, if we have crimes that took place that the DOJ didn't know about we will send it to them for subpoenas, we have all of the same authority that a court would have to issue subpoenas."
"So if you get one of these subpoenas, that is not an optional thing." he continued. "That is legally mandatory and we can coerce your cooperation through criminal contempt or civil contempt or what's called the powers of Congress where we can call people before Congress and fine them and use our own sanctions and that hasn't been done for a long time, but I don't think anybody should be testing our patience at this point."
"I want to get greater clarity on the criminal referral that I asked you, you said we're going to subpoena them, they're going to follow the law," Velshi pressed. "That's it. If any of them think they can slither away from this, they should be worried about the information we've already got. When he said we'll offer criminal referrals is that for not showing up or not giving the information that you requested or is that the fact that they may be underlying criminal activity."
"It could be both," the Democratic lawmaker replied. "When we come to people that have committed crimes on January 6th, we will turn that over, but at the same time, the chairman has signaled our determination to get all of the information we're asking for. It's just not discretionary or optional. It's the government's subpoenas or documents from you: you have to testify unless you will assert a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and we don't think that that exists."
"In other words, we will immunize you from the use of any information you give us, but you do still have to testify," he added. "The point is we're not going to play these games like they did during the Trump Administration."
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