Jan. 6 Panel Issues More Subpoenas, Focusing on Rally Before Capitol Riot

WASHINGTON — The special committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot issued three more subpoenas on Thursday, targeting organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rally that brought together many of the supporters of President Donald J. Trump who went on to violently storm the Capitol.

The subpoenas seek deposition testimony from Ali Abdul Akbar, also known as Ali Alexander, and Nathan Martin, both of whom were involved in organizing public protests around the country — including in Washington on Jan. 6 — based on Mr. Trump’s lie that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election, and that it been riddled with fraud. The committee also issued a subpoena for Stop the Steal L.L.C., an organization affiliated with the event.

“The rally on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, like the rally near the White House that day, immediately preceded the violent attack on the seat of our democracy,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “Over the course of that day, demonstrations escalated to violence and protesters became rioters.”

In the weeks before the attack, Mr. Alexander made repeated reference during “Stop the Steal” events to the possible use of violence to achieve the organization’s goals, and he claimed to have been in communication with the White House and members of Congress regarding events planned to undermine the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results, the committee said.

Mr. Alexander, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist, has claimed that he, along with Representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Andy Biggs of Arizona, all Republicans, set the events of Jan. 6 in motion.

“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr. Alexander said in a since-deleted video posted online, “so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

Additionally, Mr. Alexander spoke at a rally on Jan. 5 held by the Eighty Percent Coalition at Freedom Plaza in Washington and led the crowd in a chant of “victory, or death,” the committee said.

The committee has now issued 18 subpoenas, many focusing on the funding, planning and organization of the rally that morphed into a violent rampage at the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to formalize President Biden’s election. They chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” threatened to shoot Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forced lawmakers to evacuate the building. About 140 police officers were injured, and several people died in connection with the riot.

The committee said it was trying to get to the bottom of the organizing of the Jan. 6 event, given the conflicting information its investigators have received.

An organization named One Nation Under God submitted a permit application in December to the U.S. Capitol Police for a rally about “the election fraud in the swing states” on Jan. 6 that listed Mr. Martin’s phone number and email address among the contact information.

But when a Capitol Police official spoke with Mr. Martin at the end of December, Mr. Martin claimed not to have any information about the rally and directed the official to speak with a vendor, the committee said. According to the police official, the vendor was “shocked” to learn this because he was in “daily communication” with Mr. Martin about the event, the committee said.

After the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Alexander released a statement acknowledging that Stop the Steal had obtained the rally permit “for our ‘One Nation Under God’ event,” the committee said. He said it was the intention of Stop the Steal to direct attendees of the rally to march to Lot 8 on the U.S. Capitol grounds, which is the location for which the Capitol Police granted the permit for the “One Nation Under God” rally. The permit application estimated the event would have only 50 attendees, not the hundreds who marched on the Capitol.

The subpoenas require Mr. Alexander and Mr. Martin to produce documents by Oct. 21 and testify at depositions the next week.

The subpoenas came as time was running out for some of Mr. Trump’s closest allies to comply with the committee’s demands.

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; Dan Scavino Jr., who was a deputy chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser; and Kash Patel, the former Pentagon chief of staff, had until the end of Thursday to comply with a subpoena to turn over documents to the committee about Mr. Trump’s actions in the run-up to and during the riot.

Mr. Thompson has threatened criminal referrals for witnesses who do not comply with the subpoenas.

The committee is demanding that Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel submit to questioning next Thursday, and Mr. Bannon and Mr. Scavino the following day.

The committee’s latest action came as the Senate Judiciary Committee released a lengthy interim report about Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to do his bidding in the chaotic final weeks of his presidency. Mr. Thompson said he planned to incorporate the Senate’s findings into the House inquiry.