A committee investigating the violent 2021 attack on the US Capitol has voted to subpoena Donald Trump to give evidence.
And this could eventually result in the former president's imprisonment if he does not comply.
The panel voted unanimously to compel the former president to appear.
“We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th’s central player,” said Republican Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chairwoman this evening.
The House select committee's seven Democratic and two Republican members voted 9-0 in favor of issuing a subpoena for Trump to provide documents and testimony under oath in connection with the January 6 attack.
"He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. So we want to hear from him," said the panel's Democratic chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson.
The vote came after the committee spent more than two hours making its case - via statements from members, documents, and recorded testimony - that Trump planned to deny his 2020 election defeat in advance, failed to call off the thousands of supporters who stormed the Capitol, and followed through with his false claims the election was stolen even as close adviserstold him he had lost.
Federal law says that failure to comply with a congressional subpoena for testimony or documents is a misdemeanor, punishable by one to 12 months imprisonment.
If the select committee recommends a subpoena that is ignored, the full House must vote on whether to make a referral to the Department of Justice, which has the authority to decide whether to bring charges.
The House select committee has been investigating the attack on the Capitol, which left more than 140 police officers injured and led to several deaths, for more than a year, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been notified of the plans to call the former president to give evidence, sources close to the matter suggested.
The committee has promised new evidence at Thursday's meeting, which is set to be its last, as it continues to argue Trump was central to the violent attempt to overthrow his election defeat.
Instead of live witness testimony, video evidence from new witnesses will be provided along with thousands of documents obtained by the Sercret Service.
"We're going to be looking at that entire plan, the entire multi-part plan to overturn the election. We'll be looking at it in a broader context, and in a broader timeline as well," a committee aide told journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview the hearing.
Emails and witness statements were presented which shows, according to the committee, that Trump planned ahead of the election to cast doubt on the result if he lost.
This is the ninth hearing the Democratic-led House committee has held focusing on the riot that left five dead.
More than 140 police officers and more than 880 people have been arrested in connection with the violence, with more than 400 guilty pleas so far.
It could be the last before the panel releases its final report, expected before the November 8 midterm elections.
The panel has been investigating the attack on the Capitol for more than a year, interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that in early June, about a third of Republicans said Trump was at least partly responsible for the deadly attack. By late July, the share of Republicans with that view had risen to two in five.
The committee has used the hearings to build a case that Trump's efforts to overturn his November 2020 presidential election defeat was illegal.
Previous hearings focused on Trump's inaction before and during the storming of the Capitol, the former president's pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to deny Biden's victory, militias whose members participated in the attack and Trump's interactions with close advisers questioning his false allegations of massive voter fraud.
Committee members said Trump incited the attack by refusing to admit he lost the election and through comments, including a December tweet calling on supporters to flock to Washington on January 6, saying, "Be there, will be wild."
The one-time reality television star denies wrongdoing, hinting he will seek the White House again in 2024. He regularly holds rallies where he continues to claim falsely that he lost because of widespread fraud.
Trump and his supporters - including many Republicans in Congress - dismiss the Jan. 6 panel as a political witch hunt.
