The stage for a dramatic showdown has been set between ex-President Donald Trump and the Jan 6 Congressional panel probing the capital hills insurrection of 2021 which led to nine deaths and arrests of over hundreds of Trump supporters.
The last meeting of the January 6 committee did not conclude its ninth and possibly final public hearing by referring Donald Trump to the US justice department for criminal conduct - a move many, including some members of the panel, had urged, The BBC reported.
Instead, all nine members of the bi-partisan panel, including democrats and republicans, voted to issue a subpoena to Trump to appear before the panel and testify to the events of the attack by his supporters on capitol.
The decision of whether to indict the president for crimes relating to the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol rests with the justice department, not Congress. And the committee's formal subpoena of the former president, while historic, is almost certain to be ignored by Mr Trump, The BBC said.
Reacting angrily to the subpoena, Trump, in a 15-page letter to the Chairman of the Jan 6 panel Bennie Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi, said the "committee was a total BUST" and filled with "political hack and thugs". But apparently in a rethink following an advice by fellow republicans close to him, he decided to reconsider his decision to appear before the committee, The Independent of London reported quoting authoritative sources close to Trump.