Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos addresses local lawmakers during a contentious legislative session on December 4, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin.
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Jan. 6 committee investigators subpoenaed Wisconsin speaker Robin Vos over the weekend.
Vos fought off testifying in a countersuit denouncing “the Committee’s public relations scheme.”
Investigators want to talk to Vos about an election-related call he had with Trump in July.
Wisconsin state assembly speaker Robin Vos dodged a deposition that January 6 committee investigators had scheduled for Monday, filing a countersuit against a weekend subpoena the Badger State Republican characterized as a rush job to sew up the panel’s “public relations scheme.”
“Given how close we are to the midterms, this subpoena seems to be more about partisan politics than actual fact-finding,” Vos said in a statement first reported by WisPolitics.com.
The GOP leader added that the only reason he could see for the Jan. 6 committee to demand he testify 48 hours after being served with the subpoena was to get him on the record ahead of Wednesday’s public hearing “so that clips can be edited out to be used in a multimedia show.”
—Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 26, 2022
“The Committee is demanding Speaker Vos appear for a deposition to answer questions irrelevant to the Committee’s investigation, with virtually no notice, in the closing days of his reelection campaign, merely because of the Committee’s public relations scheme,” Vos’ lawyer argues in the countersuit.
House investigators apparently want to hear more about a 2020 election-related phone call Vos had with embattled former President Donald Trump this summer. Vos told local media in July that Trump asked him to overturn Joe Biden’s lawful victory after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled absentee-ballot drop boxes in the state illegal on July 8.
“I explained that it’s not allowed under the Constitution,” Vos said of his efforts to steer clear of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
January 6 committee staff didn’t respond to requests for comment about the Vos subpoena. WisPolitics reported that the deposition was canceled after Vos filed his legal challenge.
January 6 committee members remain tight-lipped about what new evidence they plan to present during what’s presumed to be the panel’s last public hearing before the midterm elections. But two of its senior members said over the weekend that they believe Trump was responsible for the deadly siege at the US Capitol.