Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner to Testify on Ex-President’s Role in Capitol Attack

Ivanka Trump, the former President’s daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner, have been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating her father’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection after losing his bid for re-election, the New York Times reports.

The decision comes from special counsel, Jack Smith, who has swiftly moved to reel in several members from within Donald Trump’s inner circle. Earlier this month, former vice president Mike Pence, was hit with a subpoena following months of negotiations with Pence’s legal team and federal prosecutors. Pence plans to invoke his role as the president of the Senate to fight the subpoena, by arguing that it violates the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution, per the report.

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Less than a week later, Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff and one of his closest advisors, was also summoned before the grand jury. Last year, Meadows was forced to hand over 2,319 text messages to the House select committee, which also investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In the Talking Points Memo report, Meadows was found to have texted with 34 lawmakers about overturning the 2020 election.

The string of subpoenas by Smith is likely to set up a battle over executive privilege, which Trump has leaned on in the past to blockade the Justice Department’s investigation.

Ivanka Trump was in the Oval Office the day of the insurrection, according to The Times, and was present during the call her father placed to Pence in an attempt to pressure him to stop the congressional certification of the Electoral College results documenting President Joe Biden’s victory. Pence rejected Trump’s demands, and Ivanka accompanied her father to the Ellipse near the White House where a large crowd of his supporters had gathered. Hundreds moved from the rally to the Capitol, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and attacked the building.

Although Ivanka Trump and her husband served as senior advisors in the former president’s administration, Ivanka has stated that she does not plan to be involved in politics “going forward.” Both also testified before the Jan. 6 House select committee in videotaped interviews. While many Trump aides fought subpoenas from the committee or exposed themselves to criminal liability through outright defiance, Ivanka appeared before the panel willingly in April without the leverage of a subpoena against her.

When the committee released a clip of Ivanka acknowledging that she “accepted” former Attorney General Bill Barr’s contention that the election had been conducted without evidence of widespread fraud, Trump criticized his own daughter on Truth Social for having “long since checked out” of her campaign work by the time Election Day had arrived.

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