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Former President Donald Trump will be in Texas on Saturday for another rally in the southwestern state as the House select committee investigating the attack carried out by his supporters against the U.S. Capitol last year narrows in on members of his family and inner circle.
Hundreds of Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an apparent effort to disrupt the formal certification of President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory. The House committee investigating the attack has in recent days issued subpoenas targeting Trump's family and members of his inner circle, as some legal experts have called for the former president's prosecution to prevent him from running for president again in 2024.
As the former president takes the stage this evening at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Conroe, which is near Houston, he will likely attack the January 6 committee and its ongoing investigation—as he has done repeatedly during other recent events and in interviews. Despite Trump's staunch opposition to the probe, the bipartisan group of lawmakers continues to meticulously carry out its work.
Last Thursday, the committee sent a letter to the former president's daughter and close adviser Ivanka Trump in its first public attempt to set up a formal interview with a member of his family. It's yet unclear whether Ivanka Trump will voluntarily comply with the committee's request—and if she doesn't, whether the committee will issue a formal subpoena.
"As January 6th approached, President Trump attempted on multiple occasions to persuade Vice President Pence to participate in his plan. One of the President's discussions with the Vice President occurred by phone on the morning of January 6th. You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation," committee chair representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, wrote in the January 20 letter to the former president's daughter.
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump acknowledged she had received the letter, but did not say how she planned to respond. "As the Committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally," the statement from the spokesperson said, ABC News reported. "As she publicly stated that day at 3:15pm, 'any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.'"
A day before on January 19, CNN first reported that the January 6 investigatory committee had issued a subpoena for the phone records of the former president's son Eric Trump, as well as those of Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancé of Donald Trump Jr. CNN further reported that this appeared to be the committee's first subpoena targeting a child of the former president.
Meanwhile, a number of former Trump administration officials and close allies of the former president have already faced subpoenas and interview requests from the committee. Some have refused to comply, with Trump's former senior strategist Steve Bannon formerly indicted late last year by a grand jury, after the Justice Department chose to prosecute him for contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the January 6 committee.
The House also voted this month to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena. It still remains unclear whether the former Trump administration official will be indicted by the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department did announce this past week that it is investigating an unsuccessful "fake electors" scheme hatched up by the former president's allies. That plan aimed to install a slate of fake pro-Trump electors in seven key swing states, who would have ostensibly cast Electoral College votes for the former president despite Biden actually winning in the election.
Legal experts have speculated that Trump could face prosecution over his actions leading up to and on January 6. In a Saturday opinion article for NBC News, Laurence H. Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard, and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, wrote that Trump should be convicted in order to prevent him from seeking another White House term.
"On Saturday, Trump is set to throw red meat to his base—and continue gearing up for a possible 2024 presidential run—at the Houston-area 'Save America' rally. In this alternate reality, the ongoing investigation into his election scheming is all a witch hunt, those 'alternate electors' were just trying to help America, and he and his fellow plotters are the real victims," Tribe and Aftergut wrote.
The legal experts called the Justice Department announcement about the fake electors probe "another milestone toward full accountability." They said that the, "revelation of the phony electoral slates, together with a newly unearthed draft executive order that would have directed the Defense Department to confiscate voting machines, highlights the existence of something we have been calling 'Plan A.'"
After the House select committee received subpoenaed Trump administration documents earlier this month, Politico first published an unsigned executive order that would have required the secretary of defense to confiscate voting machines. The executive order, which would have been issued by the former president, used debunked election misinformation and false claims that the 2020 results were fraudulent to justify the ultimately never-issued order.
"This plan was the first phase of the Trump administration's plot to overturn the 2020 election. The Capitol assault aimed at pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to subvert the certification of President Joe Biden's victory—'Plan B'—would have been needed as a backup in the event 'Plan A' failed," Tribe and Aftergut assessed.
The legal experts concluded their article by writing that "nothing short of convicting Trump for his role in the insurrection will disqualify him from running again in 2024, and claiming the mantle of a martyred hero rather than of a disgraced and convicted insurrectionist."
They added, "For now, the important focus is on robustly investigating the entire post-election plot as an integrated conspiracy with two parts, each aimed at keeping Donald Trump in power."
Carli Pierson, an attorney and member of USA TODAY's Editorial Board, suggested that consequences for the former president appear to be growing more likely in an opinion article published on January 24.
"There could be real-world consequences to these investigations. Namely, if the committee finds Trump and company did facilitate or participate in an act of treason, according to the Constitution, those people can never run for or hold federal office," Pierson wrote.
Regardless, Trump continues to publicly defend his actions on and before January 6. He has repeatedly attacked the House select committee and said that the two Republican members—Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois—are no longer part of the GOP in his view. The former president continues to spread the same lies about the 2020 election he did prior to the Capitol attack.
Despite Trump's claims, no evidence has been brought forward showing that Biden's win was fraudulent. To the contrary, more than 60 legal challenges filed by the former president and his allies have failed in state and federal courts. Even judges Trump appointed ruled against the legal challenges.
Audits and recounts across the country—including in areas where pro-Trump officials oversaw the election process—have consistently reaffirmed Biden's win. Many high profile Republicans and former top Trump administration officials have said publicly that there is "no evidence" to support the 2020 election conspiracy theory. But polls have repeatedly shown that the false message has resonated strongly with GOP voters, with the majority appearing to believe the lies.
Those lies animated the crowd of supporters who attacked the Capitol a little more than a year ago. Just ahead of the violence, Trump urged his supporters to walk to the legislative building and to "fight like hell" to save their country. Many proceeded to do just that. Some of those being prosecuted for their actions are now defending themselves in court by arguing that they believed they were doing the bidding of the nation's commander-in-chief.
Trump's Texas rally is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. on Saturday. It will be streamed by Newsmax. "Big crowd already gathering in Texas for tonight, see you there!" the former president said in a Saturday statement shared by his spokesperson Liz Harrington.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press office for further comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
About the writer
Jason Lemon is a Senior Politics Editor at Newsweek based in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to taking on the editor role, Jason's reporting focused ... Read more