Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin).Julio Cortez / AP

By Andrew Seidman Philadelphia Inquirer

The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania Republican state senator who is running for governor.

The panel said Tuesday that it sent subpoenas to six people, including Mastriano, demanding information “about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election.”

“Based on publicly available information and information produced to the Select Committee, we believe that you have documents and information that are relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) wrote in a letter to Mastriano that was dated Tuesday.

Citing Mastriano’s public statements and news accounts, Thompson said Mastriano participated in a plan to get the GOP-led state legislature to send a pro-Trump slate of electors to Congress on Jan. 6, spoke with former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the election, and was present on Capitol grounds the day of the riot.

“We understand you participated in these activities based on assertions of voter fraud and other asserted irregularities and based on a stated belief that under the U.S. Constitution the ‘state legislature has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting delegates to the Electoral College,’” the letter says. “We have an interest in understanding these activities and the theories that motivated them.”

» READ MORE: Doug Mastriano says he left the Capitol area before the riot. Videos say otherwise

It cites a Nov. 28, 2020, tweet by Mastriano that wrongly alleged there was “mounting evidence” Pennsylvania’s election was compromised — in which case, the senator said, the state legislature “has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting delegates to the Electoral College.”

That statement was consistent with a legal argument developed by Trump allies claiming Vice President Mike Pence could reject pro-Biden slates from key swing states such as Pennsylvania. That idea has been widely discredited by mainstream legal scholars.

Read the full story here

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