WTF Just Happened Today

Friday, September 24, 2021

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

1/ The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed four of Trump’s closest advisers, including Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon. The panel also issued subpoenas to Dan Scavino and Kash Patel. The subpoenas compel the four to produce documents relevant to the deadly attack by Oct. 7, and then sit for a deposition the following week. The committee said it was seeking information about Trump’s actions leading up to and during the riot. In a statement, Trump called the panel the “Unselect Committee” and promised to “fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds, for the good of our Country.” (NPR / New York Times / Politico)

2/ Biden will not invoke executive privilege to shield Trump White House records from the House’s Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. The decision would likely set up a legal fight with Trump citing “executive privilege” in an effort to block the information requests. White House spokesman Michael Gwin said Biden is “deeply committed to ensuring that something like [Jan. 6] can never happen again and he supports a thorough investigation into what occurred,” adding that “the events of Jan. 6th were a dark stain on our country’s history, and they represented an attack on the foundations of our constitution and democracy in a way that few other events have.” The National Archives has identified hundreds of pages of relevant documents, which will be sent to Biden and Trump lawyers. (Associated Press / Washington Post / CNN / Politico)

3/ The hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 vote – ordered and financed by Republicans – confirmed that Biden won and the election was not “stolen” from Trump. The draft report from Cyber Ninjas found that Trump received 261 fewer votes than the county’s official election results, and that there was less than a 1,000-vote difference between the county’s count and the recount. Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes. The recount took nearly six months and cost almost $6 million. Trump, meanwhile, issued a statement claiming the report “uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD!” (AZ Central / NPR / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / The Hill / Washington Post)

4/ A New York judge ordered the Trump Organization to submit a report by Sept. 30 on its efforts to prese...

Visit WTF Just Happened Today? for more news and headlines, brought to you by Matt Kiser. The WTFJHT Podcast is narrated and produced by Joe Amditis.