Merrick Garland comments on DOJ’s Jan 6 investigation
Prosecutors leading the federal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election have reportedly subpoenaed former deputy White House counsel to testify to a grand jury.
Patrick Philbin served under Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who recently testified on camera to the 6 January select committee after extended negotiations. He and others in his office are thought to have been crucial in refusing to let former president Donald Trump politicize the executive branch’s legal apparatus in order to secure a second term despite losing the election.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump has launched a broadside against proposed reforms to the Electoral Count Act, claiming that the effort to make it more specific is proof that Mike Pence did in fact have scope to throw out the certification of electoral college votes on 6 January 2021.
“Senators are meeting right now on reforming the Electoral Count Act so that a Vice President can no longer do what EVERYBODY, except for certain Conservative legal scholars, said was not allowed to be done. So they all lied,” he wrote, adding that Mr Pence “could have sent fraudulent votes back to State Legislatures” in his view.
