Subpoenas author of debunked election-fraud PowerPoint

Jan. 6 committee subpoenas author of debunked election-fraud PowerPoint sent to Meadows

James P. “Phil” Waldron, a retired Army colonel, is asked to provide documents by Jan. 10 and sit for a deposition.

By NICHOLAS WU and KYLE CHENEY

The select panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection said Thursday it had subpoenaed James P. “Phil” Waldron, a retired Army colonel who helped allies of former President Donald Trump promote debunked claims about election fraud.

“Mr. Waldron reportedly played a role in promoting claims of election fraud and circulating potential strategies for challenging results of the 2020 election. He was also apparently in communication with officials in the Trump White House and in Congress discussing his theories in the weeks leading up to the January 6th attack,” the committee’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), said in a statement.

Thompson referred to a PowerPoint presentation that Waldron, according to The New York Times, had given to members of Congress bolstering Trump’s attempt to challenge his 2020 loss as an “an alarming blueprint for overturning a nationwide election.”

The summons asks Waldron to turn over documents to the panel by Jan. 10 and appear for a deposition the week after. Waldron could not immediately be reached for comment.

Waldron’s subpoena comes as the panel zeroes in on the Trump White House’s countenancing of election fraud claims. Earlier this week, the full House voted to hold former chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress after he refused to testify before the select committee.

The panel had hoped to ask Meadows about the Waldron PowerPoint, which he received on Jan. 5 amid intensifying last-ditch efforts by Trump allies to overturn the election. Meadows turned over the Waldron document during a brief period of cooperation with the committee.

Waldron also participated in state-level hearings held by Republican allies of Trump in the aftermath of the Nov. 3, 2020, election, testifying about discredited claims of fraud that Trump seized on to assert that the election had been stolen from him.