- Longtime Donald Trump aide Dan Scavino's next subpoena will be from "Electric Avenue" singer Eddy Grant.
- Grant is suing Donald Trump for using 1983 disco-reggae hit in a campaign tweet.
- Scavino's phone records are being sought by the House January 6 Committee; he is fighting that subpoena.
Donald Trump adviser Dan Scavino is about to get another subpoena — but compared to the January 6 committee's, this one should be a walk in the park, or at least a walk down to "Electric Avenue."
Lawyers for singer-songwriter Eddy Grant say they plan to serve Scavino with a subpoena for his testimony in an ongoing copyright lawsuit filed by the '80s disco-reggae sensation against Trump and the Trump campaign.
Scavino was the campaign's social media director; Grant's side wants to ask him about any role he played in an August, 2020 campaign tweet — sent from Trump's personal Twitter account — that used 40 seconds of the hit song.
The tweet featured an animation showing then-candidate Joe Biden puttering along on a slow-moving hand-car as the Trump campaign zooms past in a high-speed train with the 80s dance hit "Electric Avenue" playing in the background.
Grant is suing Trump for $300,000 in federal court in Manhattan for unauthorized use of the song. The tweet was viewed more than 13 million times in the month before it was taken down, according to Grant's 2020 lawsuit.
"Mr. Scavino is reported to have frequently authored and/or reviewed Mr. Trump's tweets and defendants have represented that Mr. Scavino had a role in the alleged tweet containing the infringing video," Grant's lawyer, Brett Van Benthysen, wrote in an August 20 court filing that explains why the testimony is being sought.
Scavino, a longtime aide and adviser to Trump, is also fighting the House January 6 committee's subpoena of Verizon for his phone records.
The filing asks a judge for a delay in a previously agreed-to discovery deadline so that the Scavino subpoena can be served.
Scavino's testimony has become newly necessary because Trump's side recently communicated "that they would not be able to locate a corporate representative" for the 2020 Trump campaign, the filing said.
The filing also revealed that Trump himself was deposed in the "Electric Avenue" case on June 9.
Trump was also due to have been deposed in June for a 2020 federal lawsuit out of Manhattan that alleges he defrauded four plaintiffs though a multi-level marketing scheme promoted on "The Apprentice"
The former president was deposed in Manhattan on August 10 by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating whether the Trump Organization committed fraud throughout a decade of financial filings.
An attorney for Grant declined to comment. Scavino did not immediately respond to a request for comment.