Kelli Ward must turn over phone recordings to Jan. 6 committee: judge

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot may have access to phone records of Rep. Kelli Ward and her husband, a federal court ruled Saturday.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to deny the Arizona Republican’s request to stop his phone company, T-Mobile, from complying with a subpoena issued by the House committee, reported POLITICO.

“The investigation, after all, is not about Ward’s politics; it is about her involvement in the events leading up to the January 6 attack, and he seeks to discover those with whom she communicated about those events,” the majority justices wrote in their opinion.

« The fact that some of the people Ward communicated with may be members of a political party does not establish that the subpoena is likely to reveal » sensitive information about [the party’s] members and supporters.’”

The lone dissenting judge said she would have granted Ward’s request to block the subpoena because the committee did not provide evidence that Ward’s contacts were involved in the siege.

The select committee is looking for phone records because the Wards are among Republican leaders to publicly reject Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and attempted to void the election.

Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, have fought the subpoena since it was first issued in January, arguing that it violates their First Amendment rights by impinging on her activities as chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party. .

Last month, an Arizona-based federal judge denied Ward’s request for an injunction to block the subpoena, POLITICO said. A 9th Circuit panel temporarily halted the subpoena on Tuesday, but Saturday’s decision entered the stay.

Last week, the select committee issued a subpoena to former President Trump over allegations that he « personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to void the 2020 presidential election. »