Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump slapped with subpoenas by special counsel investigating Capitol riot: report

Former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner have been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating the 45th president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The couple, who served as prominent advisers in the Trump White House, were summoned to testify before a federal grand jury looking into the now-76-year-old’s efforts to remain in power following his defeat in the 2020 election.

Kushner, 42, and Ivanka, 41, are the latest high-profile acolytes of the former president to have been issued subpoenas by special counsel Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to handle the government’s probes into Jan. 6 and the former president’s retention of classified government material after leaving office.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have also reportedly been issued subpoenas this year by Smith in connection with the events of two years ago.

Pence, who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has said he will resist his subpoena by arguing that he was covered by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause in his dual role as president of the Senate. 

The clause protects members of Congress from being questioned in court about legislative acts.

Meadows has previously resisted efforts to compel him to testify, citing executive privilege in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid questioning from a special grand jury in Georgia probing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden in the Peach State. 

It is unclear whether Ivanka Trump and Kushner will also fight their subpoenas or whether the former president will try and block them from testifying on the grounds of executive privilege.

The former president did not invoke executive privilege before the couple testified to a House select committee investigating the riot last year.

Ivanka Trump told the committee that she was in the Oval Office with her father on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, when he made a heated phone call to Pence demanding that he block or delay the certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory, which the former vice president refused to do.

Ivanka Trump was also present at the Jan. 6 “Stop The Steal” rally near the White House, from which hundreds of Trump supporters moved toward the Capitol before breaking into the building and battling police for hours.

Kushner returned to the White House from a trip to the Middle East hours after rioters breached the seat of Congress. He and his wife reportedly encouraged Trump to tell the rioters to go home and vow to transfer power to Biden peacefully. 

Ivanka Trump and Kushner are notably not involved in the former president’s 2024 campaign to regain the White House.