Former U.S. President Donald Trump is suing the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to avoid cooperating with a subpoena that demands he testify. The lawsuit asserts that while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, "no former president has been forced to do so."

Warrington, Trump's lawyer, said in a statement announcing Trump's intentions that "a longstanding precedent and practice affirms that the separation of powers prevents Congress from forcing the president to testify before it." Warrington also stated that Trump has dealt with the committee "in good faith to resolve these concerns consistent with the powers of the executive branch and separation of powers," but said the committee "insists on following a political path, leaving President Trump no choice but to involve the third branch, the judiciary, in this dispute between the executive and legislative branches."

The committee also refrained from commenting on the filing, which comes days before the deadline the committee set for Trump to begin cooperating. However, the lawsuit is likely to extinguish the possibility that Trump will be forced to testify, given that the committee is expected to disband at the end of the legislative session in January. This also comes just days before Trump is expected to officially launch a third presidential campaign at his Mar-Lago club.

The committee had also voted to subpoena Trump during the last televised hearing before the midterm elections, and did so officially last month, even demanding testimony from the former president either in the Capitol building or via video by mid-November, continuing for several days if necessary. The letter set a sweeping request for documents, including personal communications between Trump and members of Congress as well as extremist groups, where Trump's response to this request was due last week, but the nine-member committee extended its deadline to this week.

In the lawsuit filed, Trump's lawyers attacked the subpoena and considered it a violation of his First Amendment rights. They also argue that other sources besides Trump could provide the same information the committee wants from him.

The committee—which consists of seven Democrats and two Republicans—issued a statement last week saying it was in contact with Trump's lawyers, as the committee's decision to subpoena Trump in late October was a major escalation in its investigation, a step lawmakers said was necessary because the former president, as members allege, was the "central player" in a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 results.

In the same vein, the committee's vice-chair, Liz Cheney, said during last week's event: "I believe he has a legal obligation to testify." Besides demanding Trump testify, the committee also issued 19 requests for documents and communications—including any messages Trump sent on the encrypted messaging app Signal or "by any other means" to members of Congress and others about the shocking events of January 6, 2021, the Capitol attack.

The committee's request was wide-ranging—pursuing documents from September 1, 2020, two months before the election, to the present regarding the president’s communications with groups such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys—where the committee seeks to compile a historic report documenting the period leading up to the Capitol attack, the event itself, and its aftermath.

Trump’s lawsuit was also filed in the Southern District of Florida, where other Trump lawyers have successfully sued to secure a special master tasked with conducting an independent review of records seized by the FBI during an August 8 search at Mar-a-Lago.