January 6 committee chair said he has signed about 20 new subpoenas that are going out ‘soon’

By Annie Grayer and Ryan Nobles, CNN

Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, told reporters that he has signed about 20 subpoenas and that they are going out “soon,” possibly by Friday.

Thompson would not confirm if former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who CNN has reported the committee plans to subpoena, is a part of that group, but said of the next batch of the subpoenas: “Some of the people have been written about. Some of the people haven’t been written about.”

Asked if there are lawmakers the committee is planning to subpoena, the Mississippi Democrat said: “Not yet.”

Thompson’s update comes after the committee has already issued rounds of subpoenas to a variety of individuals including some of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies and individuals involved in the organization of rallies and events that preceded the riot.

Separately Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who serves as the vice chair of the committee, told CNN that the panel has also interviewed more than 150 people, indicating that much of its investigation is developing behind closed doors. Cheney said the committee has talked with “a whole range of people,” some in interviews and others in depositions.

On Friday, the committee is expected to interview former Justice Department official Jeffery Clark, multiple sources tell CNN.

Clark, a Justice Department official who was integral to helping Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was originally scheduled to meet with the committee last Friday, but his interview was postponed because he had a change in counsel. He was subpoenaed by the committee after failing to voluntarily cooperate with the panel’s investigation.

The committee’s interest in Clark and previous meeting with former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen underscore the panel’s interest in learning more about how Trump attempted to pressure top officials to investigate claims of election fraud during his final days in office.

Many of the individuals that the committee has subpoenaed have been granted short postponements as the terms of their engagement with the committee gets sorted out.

“There are some who have been subpoenaed who have negotiated, you know, their schedule with their lawyers. And some went kind of back and forth over the parameters for their subpoena or deposition,” Thompson told CNN.

But he made clear that none of the individuals that the committee continues to engage with have defied their subpoena like Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s closest allies, who was held by the House in criminal contempt and has been referred to the Department of Justice.

“There’s nobody who just outright rejected the subpoena process like Bannon. Everybody else is somewhere in the mix,” Thompson said.

This story has been updated with additional details Thursday.

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CNN’s Zachary Cohen and Whitney Wild contributed to this report.