Republican political operative Roger Stone sued to block the release of his phone records to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The longtime adviser of former President Donald Trump claims the committee lacks subpoena power because it was not properly constituted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He’s the latest Trump ally to sue in an effort to block telecom providers from releasing phone records to the committee. Lawyers John Eastman and Sydney Powell and Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward filed similar lawsuits.
In a call with Bloomberg after his suit was filed, Stone complained about the breadth of the House subpoena, which requests metadata for his phone from Nov. 1, 2020 through the end of January.
“It’s a fishing expedition,” he said, adding that there’s nothing there to find.
The records sought by the committee records are logs of incoming and outgoing calls that show the date, time and length of each call. They also show a log of text messages, but not the substance or content of the messages.
Stone claims the Jan. 6th Committee wasn’t properly constituted and therefore lacks authority to issue subpoenas.
When the House authorized the committee last June, it called for a 12-member panel with five members picked by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in consultation with Pelosi.
But after Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s picks — Trump allies Jim Jordan and Jim Banks — McCarthy withdrew all five of his nominations.
Pelosi ended up empaneling a committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans — Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger, both of whom are critics of Trump.
The panel’s spokesperson, Hannah Muldavin, had no comment on Stone’s filing.
The case is Stone v. Schiff, 1:22-cv-00492, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington)
