Ivanka Trump testified, for 6 hours, before the House Jan. 6 panel “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Chair Bennie Thompson said. Jared Kushner provided 'helpful' details to the Jan. 6 committee the former first son-in-law voluntarily appeared for a remote interview that started at 10 a.m. and lasted at least into the early afternoon hours, several sources familiar with the committee's work said. "I think that the committee really appreciates hearing information directly from people who have relevant facts about January 6, and the fact that Jared Kushner came as a witness is helpful to building the story of our investigation," committee member Elaine Luria said.
My guess is that by testifying voluntarily, they can be more selective about what they share than they would under subpoena. So probably told the truth, but mostly only the truth they wanted to share.
I don't know how it works in a congressional committee, but in court if you are sworn as a witness it being subpoenaed or not is irrelevant. The only difference would be you could theoretically leave during a break and not return, but that wouldn't prevent a subsequent subpoena from being issued, or you could just be ordered to return (which has the same force and effect of a subpoena).
Subpoena’s also can have additional requirements as spelled out in riders etc… but you are right as far scope is concerned.
From what we've seen recently, Congress has a lot of trouble getting subpoenas on powerful people. I don't think it's like court.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/07/what-happens-if-you-lie-to-congress.html covers general perjury, and stipulates that anyone who "willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true" is guilty of perjury and shall be fined or imprisoned up to five years, or both. Section 1001 covers false statements more generally, without requiring an oath. The section stipulates that "whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the government of the United States, knowingly and willfully" falsifies or conceals information, including before a congressional committee's inquiry, may also be fined or imprisoned up to five years.
I am not a lawyer nor expert on how government works, but I suspect that up to recently congressional subpoenas tended to work in part because at some point each party is in control of congress and thus compliance was assumed and fulfilled as a result. And likely most people complied since it was considered "the right thing to do". I believe congress can charge people with contempt of congress and even file civil court cases to get judges to enforce compliance. Seems another unfortunate outcome of "trumpism"... people not complying, seeing themselves above the law. Oh, I suspect others have in past and I know people will point to examples like Eric Holder. Just seems to be much more rampant now.
Yes I suspect the next time Republicans are in charge of Congress and want to subpoena people they are likely to see a lot of non-compliance also.
Again, I don't expect they would lie to Congress. They'd just choose not to answer questions they don't want to answer. If a committee chair doesn't like it, he can issue a subpoena, which seems to somehow takes months, and then the witness appeals to a court that the subpoena is inappropriate or somehow unlawful, maybe appeals that decision, asks a judge for more time to prepare arguments, loses then defies the subpoena, the full House votes on whether it was contempt, then they refer it to the DOJ, the DOJ reviews the case for prosecution, they indict, the witness asks the judge for more time to prepare their defense, they eventually get convicted and appeal to a higher court, they finally eventually settle the case with the DOJ after their testimony is so old as to be worthless. Meanwhile, their political allies call it a witch hunt and an abuse of power, they use it as a talking point at campaign rallies and in attack ads against Reps in Congress and against the President and against officials in the DOJ, they repeat it ad naseum in their partisan media outlets to groom their audiences to believe it's another tile in the mosaic of the tyranny of the Deep State.
meanwhile, evidence points to that Fredo will be the next one Trump Jr.'s text to Meadows shows ideas to overturn 2020 election Fredo texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows two days after the 2020 presidential election with strategies for overturning the result if Trump’s father lost It reportedly laid out strategies that then-President Donald Trump’s team pursued in the following months as they disseminated misinformation about election fraud and pressured state and federal officials to assist in that effort. made “specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results.” It also suggested that if those measures didn’t work, lawmakers in Congress could dismiss the electoral results and vote to keep President Trump in office. The text had been obtained by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. In the last week, the committee has interviewed former President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Their virtual testimonies are the closest lawmakers have gotten to the former president.
This is such an awesome post. I dont follow news enough to even know if your scenario is commonplace or has even happened once but it still sums up the whole parade if only in an artistic sense Having money to pay for good legal representation is having money to pay for long-term legal representation
At the risk of your childish insulting A) nobody will give a **** about Trump holding the documents even top security docs unless a real breach of security happens B) your fascination with Ivanka and the law is weird. Maybe you have fantasies of her in one of those cheesy movies about women in prison but everybody already knows Trump was peddling lies in his accusations of election fraud We all know he attempted to prevent certification of the election.
