WASHINGTON —

Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The committee's chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a “war room” ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Video above: House Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump associates back in September

Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.

“In the days before the January 6th attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes," Thompson said. "The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all."

The subpoenas come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers — some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.

The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trump's false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Biden's win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.

Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered “credible evidence” of their participation in the former president's efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.

In Stepien's subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the “conversion” of Trump's presidential campaign to a “Stop the Steal” effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could “count on” them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.

Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification — a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastman's outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called “war room” at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trump's defeat.

In the letter to Flynn — the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump — Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants “discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”

None of those subpoenaed who were contacted by Monday by The Associated Press responded to requests for comment.

The panel is working with other close Trump advisers to gain testimony, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and administration aides Kashyap Patel and Dan Scavino. Members of the committee said they have been “engaging” with those witnesses but may move to hold them in contempt, as well, if they don't comply soon.

Trump's own opposition has prompted some of his advisors, including Bannon, to say they can't speak publicly about their roles. The former president's lawsuit argues that he can assert executive privilege, or a presidential claim to keep some information private, in an effort to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents to the panel. The committee has argued that privilege doesn't apply.

President Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents that the committee has asked for, citing the panel’s need to investigate the violent attack.

In his subpoena to Eastman, Thompson sought to preemptively attack any attorney-client privilege that he may attempt to cite to avoid testifying. The letter noted that Eastman has already “made extensive public comments" regarding his legal advice and direct discussions with Trump.

Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aligned himself with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as other department leaders pushed back, appeared for a deposition on Friday but declined to cooperate, presenting the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trump’s assertions of privilege, including in the ongoing court case.

Thompson said afterward that he had rejected the claims of privilege and said Clark “has a very short time” to reconsider and cooperate.

The committee has already interviewed more than 150 people across government, social media and law enforcement, including some former Trump aides who have been cooperative. The panel has subpoenaed more than 20 witnesses total, and most of them, including several associates who helped plan the massive “Stop the Steal” rally the morning of the 6th, have signaled they will cooperate.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An energy company that gave the money in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio and a man accused of spending a large chunk of it are now arguing in separate proceedings that their actions were legal.

Neither asserts the money didn’t flow.

Akron-based FirstEnergyCorp. argues that political donations are protected by the First Amendment and a federal criminal complaint failed to provide evidence that money was exchanged for official favors, according to a motion filed by company attorneys seeking dismissal of shareholder lawsuits.

Matt Borges, a former state Republican Party chair and lobbyist, called violations of campaign finance law leveled against him by the state elections chief, based off the federal complaint, “absurd and without merit,” according to a recent affidavit submitted to the Ohio Elections Commission. He doesn’t deny he paid $15,000 in dark money funneled through a private bank account to another person, only the details of their arrangement.

As FirstEnergy and Borges lay out their defenses, campaign finance experts say their tacit acknowledgement is notable.

“We’ve been in a place with money in politics for awhile where the scandal isn’t a paper bag of money in a dark alleyway, but the scandal is what’s legal,” said Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said her organization is watching the sweeping federal racketeering case in Ohio to see if it clarifies the law around dark money organizations: “It may be legal. We shall see.”

The latest FirstEnergy and Borges filings appear against the backdrop of what federal prosecutors described in July as, not everyday political giving, but an elaborate secret scheme orchestrated by then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to gain the speaker’s chair, elect political allies, pass a $1 billion nuclear bailout law and crush a ballot effort aimed at repealing it.

Householder, who fellow Republicans have demoted but not unseated from the House, also maintains that he is innocent and expects to be vindicated. Federal prosecutors charge that FirstEnergy funneled millions through a network of private businesses, bank accounts and dark money groups controlled by Householder, who, along with four associates including Borges, spent it on candidates, campaigns, influence peddling and personal expenses.

Both Householder and Borges have pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges. Two others charged in the probe have pleaded guilty and a third died by suicide in March.

In his affidavit, Borges said recordings of conversations between him and Tyler Fehrman, who wore a wire for the FBI while working for the repeal effort, were “selectively edited to make those discussions appear as bad as possible.” Fehrman declined comment, referring a reporter to details in the criminal complaint. A preliminary review of Borges’ elections case is scheduled for June 24.

FirstEnergy’s filing said there was no explicit agreement between the company and Householder and his associates “to commit an unlawful act.”

Its attorneys referred to FirstEnergy spending on the effort to pass the nuclear bailout bill, House Bill 6, as not bribes but contributions and to nonprofits implicated in the alleged scheme as not dark money groups but as “social welfare organizations.”

Krumholz said social welfare is often far from these groups’ main mission.

“These are not your average Girls and Boys Clubs,” she said.

She said if the scheme fails to produce convictions, Ohioans will be worse off — but they will have learned something about politics as usual.

“The bottom line is this leaves Ohioans in the dark about how money is used to influence the laws that their representatives pass and that will govern their lives,” she said. “And that’s why it’s called dark money. It leaves us in the dark.”

Vandewalker said, “Of course, the people who are receiving the money know exactly where it’s coming from and what those people want.”

Generation Now, the dark money group also indicted in July alongside Householder and the others, pleaded guilty in February.

___

Gillispie reported from Cleveland. AP reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins contributed to this report.

The New York attorney general's office said Tuesday that it is conducting a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump's business empire, expanding what had previously been a civil probe.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the company is no longer purely civil in nature," Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Attorney General Letitia James, said in a statement.

“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Levy said.

James' investigators are working with the Manhattan district attorney's office, which has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, for two years. James and District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. are both Democrats.

James' office offered no explanation for what prompted the change in its approach to the investigation or why it chose to announce it publicly.

Levy declined further comment. A spokesperson for Vance declined comment. A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer for Trump and spokespeople for the former president and his company.

James’ disclosure of a widening investigation is not necessarily an indication that she is planning to bring criminal charges. In New York, if that were to happen, the state attorney general can do so through a county district attorney, like Vance, or with a referral from Gov. Andrew Cuomo or a state agency.

James’ civil investigation and Vance’s criminal probe had overlapped in some areas, including examining whether Trump or his businesses manipulated the value of assets — inflating them in some cases and minimizing them in others — to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.

Vance’s investigation also included a look at hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf and the propriety of tax write-offs the Trump Organization claimed on millions of dollars in consulting fees it paid, including money that went to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

Vance’s office hasn’t publicly said what it is investigating, citing grand jury secrecy rules, but some details have come out during a legal battle to get access to Trump's tax records, which it finally obtained in February.

As part of her civil investigation, James’ office issued subpoenas to local governments in November 2019 for records pertaining to Trump’s estate north of Manhattan, Seven Springs and a tax benefit Trump received for placing land there into a conservation trust.

James was also looking at similar issues relating to a Trump office building in New York City, a hotel in Chicago and a golf course near Los Angeles. Her office also won a series of court rulings forcing Trump’s company and a law firm it hired to turn over troves of records.

Vance’s investigation has also appeared to focus in recent weeks on the Trump Organization's longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

His former daughter-in-law, Jen Weisselberg, has given investigators reams of documents as they look into how some Trump employees were compensated with apartments or school tuition.

Weisselberg was subpoenaed in James’ civil investigation and testified twice in 2020. His lawyer didn't immediately respond to an email Tuesday night.