Trump stooges Stephen Miller and Kayleigh McEnany just got dragged into January 6th scandal

The January 6th Committee has vowed to get to the bottom of Donald Trump’s insurrection plot no matter what, and their latest subpoenas reveal just how deep and wide their probe is running. Trump stooges Stephen Miller and Kayleigh McEnany have both been subpoenaed, and this could get ugly for both of them.

There’s a widespread narrative out there that the committee’s criminal referral against Steve Bannon has merely “emboldened” other would-be witnesses to defy their subpoenas, because Bannon hasn’t yet been indicted for it. But this doesn’t correlate at all with reality. In fact Trump stooge Jeffrey Clark seemed scared enough by the Bannon referal that he tried showing up to testify and then invoking imaginary privilege, in the hope of avoiding a criminal referral of his own.

The reality is that no one ever wants to end up under federal criminal investigation. Bannon likely only defied his subpoena because he’s already under state criminal investigation in New York, and he feared if he cooperated with the January 6th Committee, he’d end up further incriminating himself. So he’s taking his chances with federal prosecution on top of state prosecution.

It’s a different story for people who aren’t already under criminal investigation. The likes of Stephen Miller and Kayleigh McEnany somehow managed to avoid ending up under criminal investigation during their time in the Trump White House. They managed to escape without going to prison, which can’t be said for a number of other Trump advisers. So are they really willing to put themselves under federal criminal investigation now, just to avoid cooperating with the January 6th Committee?

This is an ugly position for people like Miller and McEnany to be in. Do they really want to bet their freedom on the hope that the DOJ won’t indict them for contempt? The reality is that we’re going to see a signifiant portion of these subpoenaed individuals either partly or fully cooperating, out of fear of going to federal prison for contempt. And the less legal trouble any given person is already in, the more likely they’re going to cooperate.