Press Releases
Watchdog: January 6 Committee Must Subpoena Key RAGA Members
Washington, D.C. — New reporting indicates that the House select committee charged with investigating the violent Capitol attack on January 6 is planning to slap former top White House officials and aides with subpoenas as part of its ongoing probe. Notably missing from the list of potential recipients so far, however, are key members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) — many of whom played a key role in the rally that led to the attack on our democracy. Government watchdog Accountable.US renewed its calls on the committee to demand answers from RAGA and RLDF officials for their actions and whereabouts ahead of the deadly insurrection to get the full picture of what happened.
“It’s crucial for the committee to hear from top Trump officials, but if the commission wants the full story of what happened on January 6, they need to hear testimony from key members of the Republican Attorneys General Association,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US. “RAGA Chairman and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Policy Chairman and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, and the group itself deserve scrutiny for their roles in the violent insurrection at the Capitol. It’s clear these attorneys general won’t answer for their actions on their own, so the January 6 commission must subpoena them and demand accountability.”
Last month, Accountable.US sent a letter to the January 6 committee imploring them to call on key members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) to testify regarding their role leading up to the deadly attack.
RAGA has a long history of undermining our democracy and inciting violence. The day before the insurrection, RLDF sent out robocalls with a message instructing individuals to march to the Capitol and “call on Congress to stop the steal.” To this day, Alabama Attorney General and RLDF Chair Steve Marshall still maintains that he doesn’t know who authorized and paid for the robocalls, and has failed to clarify his whereabouts leading up to and directly following the insurrection.
Leading up to the attack, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a frivolous lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the results of the election. Despite Paxton’s lack of evidence, 17 other attorneys general supported the case, including RLDF Chair Steve Marshall and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who would later be named RAGA chairman. The lawsuit was tossed out by the Supreme Court for lack of standing. Paxton was also a headlining speaker at the rally that took place before violence erupted at the Capitol and told the crowd “we will not quit fighting.”
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