Jan. 6 committee asks Ivanka Trump for cooperation, testimony
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack requested on Thursday that Ivanka Trump cooperate with its investigation and asked her to testify regarding conversations with her father, former President Donald Trump, before and on Jan. 6, 2021, as they pertain to the attack and the challenging of election results.
In a new letter addressed to the former president's daughter, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., requested she voluntary provide an interview with the committee, citing her presence in the Oval Office.
"As January 6th approached, President Trump attempted on multiple occasions to persuade Vice President Pence to participate in his plan. One of the President's discussions with the Vice President occurred by phone on the morning of January 6th. You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation," Thompson says in the letter.
"[T]he Committee would like to discuss any other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding the President's plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes," the letter says.
Thompson wrote that the panel's questions to Trump's eldest daughter, who also served as a senior adviser in the White House for four years, would be "limited to issues relating to January 6th, the activities that contributed to or influenced events on January 6th, and your role in the White House during that period."
"The Committee is aware that certain White House staff devoted time during the violent riot to rebutting questions regarding whether the President was attempting to hold up deployment of the guard[…]," it says in the letter. "But the Committee has identified no evidence that President Trump issued any order, or took any other action, to deploy the guard that day. Nor does it appear that President Trump made any calls at all to the Department of Justice or any other law enforcement agency to request deployment of their personnel to the Capitol."
In a press release Thursday announcing the letter, the committee said the evidence it has already obtained shows "that Ms. Trump was in direct contact with the former President at key moments on January 6th and that she may have information relevant to other matters critical to the Select Committee's investigation."
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump responded to the letter in a statement but did not directly address whether she would voluntarily comply with the committee's request.
"Ivanka Trump just learned that the January 6 Committee issued a public letter asking her to appear. As the Committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally," the statement says. "As she publicly stated that day at 3:15pm, 'any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.'"
Notably, the spokesperson omitted part of the now-deleted tweet from Jan. 6, 2021, where she referred to those breaching the Capitol as "American Patriots," before calling for an end to the violence.
And while she did not deliver remarks at the rally that day, she was present backstage and seen in a video speaking with her father while viewing video of the crowd.
The former president has repeatedly attempted to discredit the work of the committee and has urged his allies and aides not to comply.
Earlier this week, the select committee subpoenaed former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, who pushed unfounded claims of widespread 2020 election fraud. ABC News also confirmed that the committee acquired phone records from Trump's son, Eric, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancee of Donald Trump Jr.
In the six months since it was created, the select committee has interviewed more than 350 witnesses, received more than 300 substantive tips and issued more than 50 subpoenas -- for phone and email records, Trump administration documents, witness testimony and bank records, according to the committee's public disclosures and lawsuits filed by witnesses.
The panel has also received nearly 40,000 pages of records -- including text messages, emails and Trump administration documents provided by the National Archives in four separate tranches.
The request to Trump's daughter comes on the heels of the Supreme Court on Wednesday denying the former president's request for a stay of a lower court mandate that hundreds of pages of his presidential records from Jan. 6 be turned over to the congressional committee -- a huge win for the panel, which is planning to issue an interim report on its findings over the summer.
ABC News' John Santucci, Will Steakin and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
