Reps. Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks are among the others subpoenaed.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack subpoenaed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other Republican members of Congress on Thursday for testimony about events surrounding the Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
McCarthy and the other members — Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania — had rejected the committee’s voluntary requests for cooperation in recent months.
The subpoenas mark a dramatic escalation in the committee’s tactics and follow weeks of internal debate over whether to try to force Republicans to testify behind closed doors about their conversations with former President Donald Trump and involvement in various parts of the effort to overturn the election and contest the certification of the results.
The Republican members are unlikely to comply with the requests, which could prompt a legal — and, at minimum, political — battle with McCarthy and other lawmakers who are expected to be in the majority next year and in position to seek retribution.
The committee is expected to begin a series of public hearings on their investigation next month, ahead of issuing a final report on their inquiry in the fall. The report will be the product of nearly 1,000 interviews, and tens of thousands of pages of records obtained by investigators.