Former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has lost his bid to quash a subpoena for his testimony and phone records one day after suing the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The lawsuit – which asked for a temporary restraining order – was filed Tuesday in the federal district court for Fort Myers, Fla., one day before Flynn was scheduled to appear before the committee to testify. US District Court Judge Mary Scriven cited lack of urgency as one reason for denying Flynn’s request Wednesday, according to NBC News.
While the committee originally requested documents from Flynn by Nov. 23, the judge noted “there is no evidence in the record as to the date by which the select committee now expects Flynn to comply with its document requests.” Scriven also noted that Flynn’s deposition had been postponed to “a date to be determined.”
As a result, the judge ruled there was “no basis to conclude that Flynn will face immediate and irreparable harm” through the document request. Scriven also noted that Flynn’s attorneys had failed to follow the correct process in filing a request for a restraining order by neither notifying the other party or revealing why notice isn’t needed.
If Flynn “believes he can comply with the procedural requirements,” he can try again, the judge said.
In the 42-page filing, Flynn alleged the committee’s request was an “outrageous intrusion” that risked violating his First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.
“The subpoena demands records of General Flynn’s communications about the 2020 election, and seeks to identify the basis for his beliefs and the persons with whom he associated, in addition to contacts with government officials. It thus constitutes a frontal assault on his 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association, and petition,” the suit reads.
“Without intervention by this Court, General Flynn faces the harm of being irreparably and illegally coerced to produce information and testimony in violation of the law and his constitutional rights,” it continues. “He will also be illegally and irreparably harmed by the Select Committee’s unlawful and secret seizure of his and his family’s personal information from their telecommunications and/or electronic mail service providers.”
Flynn sought for the court to declare the current subpoena and future summonses from the committee “unlawful and unenforceable” due to violations of his and his family’s Fourth Amendment rights as well as their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, his lawyer Matthew Sarelson wrote.
In his suit, Flynn and his legal team cited the 45th president’s claim of executive privilege over some communications that took place on and around Jan. 6.
According to the lawsuit, Flynn informed the committee of his intention to sue on Monday, noting that there “appeared to be no” way to resolve his conflict with the committee’s requests without the intervention of a court. Sarelson wrote that the panel informed Flynn it could refer him “for prosecution for contempt of Congress” if he did not appear to testify.
The committee has pursued charges against multiple former Trump aides who have refused to comply with the subpoenas. However, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is the only one to have been indicted thus far.
In addition to Trump, several other figures affiliated with the events of Jan. 6 have taken legal action against the committee, challenging its subpoenas and refusing to testify. Those include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and “Stop the Steal” campaign organizer Ali Alexander.
In notifying Flynn of his subpoena last month, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) pointed to a meeting held Dec. 18, 2020, that Flynn reportedly attended and during which “participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers, and continuing to spread the false message that the November 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”
“The day before, Flynn gave an interview on Newsmax TV during which he talked about seizing voting machines, foreign influence in the election, and the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to ‘rerun’ the election,” Thompson added.
Among his other claims, Flynn’s suit argues that the committee is not legally constituted, since it does not include any members appointed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
“Thus, the Select Committee as it currently stands — and stood at the time it issued the subpoenas in question — has no authority to conduct business because it is not a duly constituted Select Committee,” the suit reads.
