U.S. House Jan. 6 probe subpoenas Trump adviser who reportedly prepared PowerPoint

[December 17, 2021]    By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot said on Thursday it had issued a subpoena for records and testimony from James P. "Phil" Waldron, a retired Army colonel who worked with former President Donald Trump's legal team.

According to widespread media reports, Waldron said he had briefed members of Congress on a PowerPoint presentation listing proposals for how to challenge Trump's defeat by President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

"Mr. Waldron reportedly played a role in promoting claims of election fraud and circulating potential strategies for challenging results of the 2020 election. He was also apparently in communication with officials in the Trump White House and in Congress discussing his theories in the weeks leading up to the January 6th attack," Representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the select committee, said in a statement.

The options in the PowerPoint presentation, which was handed over to the Jan. 6 Select Committee by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, included declaring a national security emergency and seizing paper ballots.

The committee has issued more than 50 subpoenas and heard from more than 300 witnesses in its investigation of the attack by supporters of the Republican ex-president as Congress met to formally certify his November 2020 presidential election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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