House committee subpoenas organisers of 6 January rally that preceded Capitol riot

It comes less than a week after the committee subpoenaed former Trump aides Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Kashyap Patel and Steve Bannon

The select congressional committee investigating the events leading up to the 6 January Capitol riot have issued a new wave of subpoenas – this time targeting the organisers of the infamous “stop the steal” rally in Washington DC that preceded the angry mob of Donald Trump supporters storming the seat of the US government.

The committee announced 11 new subpoenas in all on Wednesday evening, including Trump ally Katrina Pierson, who reportedly had a meeting with Mr Trump on 4 January about the upcoming rally.

The committee has also subpoenaed groups that helped organise rallies leading up to and on 6 January, including Women for America First and its leaders Amy Kremer and Caroline Wren, and Eighty Percent Coalition and its leader Cindy Chafian.

It comes less than a week after the committee issued four subpoenas to former Trump aides, including Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Kashyap Patel and Steve Bannon.

The committee was established by House speaker Nancy Pelosi to probe the incident that led to at least 600 arrests.

Mississippi representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee, said in a statement that the latest subpoenas were part of the inquiry’s “examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities leading up to the events of January 6”.

Mr Thompson pointed to the Women for America First, which helped organise the rally at the Ellipse where Mr Trump addressed his supporters.

The committee is also seeking information from veteran GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren, who was named by Women for America First as an adviser on the permit it submitted.

The panel, formed over the summer, is now launching the interview phase of its investigation after sorting through thousands of pages of documents it had requested in August from federal agencies and social media companies. The committee has also requested a trove of records from the White House.

The goal is to provide a complete accounting of what went wrong when the Trump loyalists brutally beat police, broke through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.