'Donald Trump will lose this litigation': House Jan. 6 committee dismisses lawsuit as delay tactic, obstruction

Former President Donald Trump sued the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the National Archives on Monday, claiming "the committee's request amounts to nothing less than a vexatious, illegal fishing expedition" that aims to "unconstitutionally investigate" Trump and his administration. The committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thomson (D-Miss.), and co-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) dismissed the lawsuit as "nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe."

"Precedent and law are on our side," Thomson and Cheney said in their Monday night statement. "We'll fight the former president's attempt to obstruct our investigation while we continue to push ahead successfully with our probe on a number of other fronts." Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) had a similar message on Monday night's Late Show.

"What substantively does that mean, suing the Jan. 6 committee?" Stephen Colbert asked Schiff. Trump is trying to do what he did for all four years he was president, "which is try to use the courts to delay, try to prevent the country from learning about his corruption," Schiff said. "Donald Trump will lose this litigation, and he knows he'll lose the litigation. The point isn't winning, the point is delaying." Colbert asked about the timeline, and Schiff said the committee wants "this investigation done as soon as possible, but no later than next year."

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The Jan. 6 committee is voting Tuesday evening on a referral to hold former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with the committee's subpoena. Schiff started his Late Show interview explaining how the committee is "going after" Bannon, and why it's important to investigate all of Trump's possible transgressions while in office. "I think you can't have a situation where you can't prosecute a sitting president, and when they leave office, you can't prosecute a former president, because if that's the case, then the president really does become above the law," he said.

Schiff also recounted to Colbert his experience on Jan. 6 itself, his sad anger over how his Republican colleagues have changed, and how Jan. 6 differed from 9/11.