Trump White House lawyer expected to appear before Jan. 6 committee

Eric Herschmann defended President Trump during his first impeachment trial.

April 6, 2022, 11:25 AM

Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann is expected to appear Wednesday before the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to multiple sources familiar with his scheduled appearance.

Herschmann and a committee spokesperson did not return ABC News' requests for comment on the interview, which could be postponed or rescheduled.

A lawyer who defended former President Donald Trump during Trump's first impeachment trial and worked in the West Wing as a senior adviser, Herschmann was involved in discussions and meetings in the White House and at Trump campaign headquarters regarding Trump's legal and political efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, including discussions in which he pushed back against attempts to pressure the Justice Department to take more aggressive actions to investigate claims of election fraud.

He was involved in a contentious Dec. 18, 2020, meeting first reported by The New York Times, where Trump allies Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne argued with Herschmann and other White House officials over invoking rarely used presidential powers to declare a national security emergency to seize voting machines -- a plan that was ultimately rejected.

Eric Herschmann speaks on the Senate floor during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Jan. 29, 2020, in Washington, DC.
ABC News

To date, the Jan. 6 committee has interviewed more than 800 witnesses and obtained tens of thousands of pages of emails, White House records, and phone records as part of its investigation.

A handful of witnesses have refused to comply with committee subpoenas. On Wednesday the full House will vote on whether to hold Trump White House officials Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for defying committee subpoenas and refer the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges.

In the last week the panel has interviewed Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom worked in the White House and were involved in Trump's reelection campaign.

The committee is expected to begin another round of public hearings as early as next month, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has told reporters.

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