Kagan blocks Jan. 6 subpoena for Arizona GOP chair's phone records

Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday temporarily blocked a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking the phone records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.

Kagan responded to a request from Ward to stay the enforcement of the subpoena, per NBC News. The justice is responsible for emergency applications from that state and the committee has until Friday to respond to her ruling.

"If Dr. Ward's telephone and text message records are disclosed, congressional investigators are going to contact every person who communicated with her during and immediately after the tumult of the 2020 election. That is not speculation, it is a certainty," Ward's lawyers wrote in the emergency application, per the outlet.

Arizona was one of several close states during the 2020 presidential election. Though it supported Trump in 2016, the state narrowly broke for President Joe Biden in 2020. The close final tally and the abundance of mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic attracted considerable claims of voter fraud.

Ward was one of several would-be Trump electors whom the committee subpoenaed earlier in the year.

Kagan's ruling comes as the committee seeks to enforce a subpoena against former President Donald Trump and compel his testimony and the surrender of documents.