Last year, incoming Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy demanded that the Jan 6 Committee preserve its records, evidence, and transcripts.But his requests were ignored as all were destroyed, violating President Donald Trump’s rights.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) told Fox News that the committee had not looked into possible security lapses at the Capitol, noting much of the evidence the committee did preserve was disorganized.
Fox News reported:
The House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, failed to adequately preserve documents, data, and video depositions – including communications it had with the Biden White House that are still missing – according to the Republican lawmaker overseeing the GOP investigation into the committee’s work.
The now-disbanded “J6” committee, which was run by Democrats and included only two GOP members, has also failed to provide any evidence that it looked into Capitol Hill security failures on the day of the riot, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight for the Committee on House Administration, told Fox News Digital.
“Nothing was indexed. There was no table of contents index. Usually, when you conduct this level of investigation, you use a database system, and everything is digitized, and indexed. We got nothing like that. We just got raw data,” he said. “So it took us a long time going through it, and one thing I started realizing is we don’t have anything much at all from the Blue Team [which was to have investigated security lapses].”
According to Loudermilk, the “Blue Team” was “shut down” before security lapses at the Capitol could be probed. This was because the committee’s goal was to blame Trump, who has been indicted for allegedly inspiring the riot.
Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi convened the investigation of the Jan 6 attack under chairman Rep. Benny Thompson (D-MS)
Witnesses complained that testimony had been selectively edited t distort meaning, and embers of the committee had publicly accused them of wrongdoing without evidence.
Due to those concerns, McCarthy wrote to Thompson in November 2022, saying:
“It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” he wrote.
“The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”
Republicans on the House Administration Committee also made a similar request to Thompson.
Thompson and committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney wrote to the White House and said they would preserve all of the committee’s materials, which the law requires.
However, Thompson admitted to Loudermilk in a letter that the committee had not preserved what he described as “temporary” materials, which included videos and transcripts not used “in [public] hearings or official publications.”
