The January 6th select committee that investigated the Capitol riot has been accused of failing to preserve a significant number of documents, including correspondence with the Biden White House.
The accusations have been put forth by Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight for the Committee on House Administration, who tells Fox News that his panel investigating the committee “only received 2.5 terabytes of data.”
January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) had written in a letter that his group turned over “4 terabytes” of data.
Nearly 38% of the data – 1.5 terabytes worth – did not make it into Loudermilk’s possession somehow.
Thompson, in a letter dated July 7th, admitted the J6 committee had not preserved everything Loudermilk claims they were supposed to.
“Consistent with guidance from the Office of the Clerk and other authorities, the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities,” he penned in a footnote.
“Accordingly, and contrary to your letter’s implication, the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions.”
Loudermilk accused Thompson of simply ‘deciding they didn’t have to’ give them the records.
https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1689443497076555776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
January 6th Committee Documents Missing or Destroyed?
If true, the January 6th committee’s refusal to preserve their documents is a direct violation of a request made by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who indicated shortly after the election a GOP-controlled House would investigate the partisan group’s work.
“It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” McCarthy said in a letter to Thompson.
“The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts and to be able to view the transcripts.”
Thompson responded by telling reporters that the information would not only be preserved but also “made available to the public.”
Now, however, in Thompson’s own words above, “the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions.”
Oh, and the January 6th surveillance videos also remain out of the public eye, with only parts of them being revealed by Tucker Carlson who shortly thereafter was fired by Fox News.
Why no transparency? What are they hiding?
https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1689300309330341888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Among the missing documents, according to Loudermilk, is a direct correspondence with the White House coordinated with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The letter from Thompson to White House special counsel Richard Sauber and DHS, he contends, discusses an “agreement” made between the J6 panel and the executive branch to interview individuals whose names were later redacted.
“Why didn’t they preserve this?” Loudermilk said in a statement to Fox. “Did they not want us to know that there were documents that they had sent back to the executive branch?”
https://twitter.com/RepLoudermilk/status/1689669087683551233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Trump Slams J6 Committee
The obstruction, it seems, runs even deeper.
Loudermilk expressed that even the documents they did receive from the January 6th committee did not come without issue. Most, he states, are in disarray.
“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, indexed,” he told Fox News. “We got nothing like that. We just got raw data.”
Other missing information the report states includes data “security failures” on Capitol Hill that were to be investigated by a “Blue team” that was ultimately disbanded before it could look into the matter.
Steven Sund, the chief of the Capitol Police at the time of the January 6th riot, addressed some of the ‘security failures’ in greater detail.
He claimed “everything appears to be a cover-up” and the crowd on January 6th was “filled with agents.”
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1677375046489104409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” Sund told Carlson in previously unaired footage.
“But when you look at the information and intelligence they had, the military had, it’s all watered down. I’m not getting intelligence, I’m denied any support from National Guard in advance,” he said. “I’m denied National Guard while we’re under attack, for 71 minutes…”
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1687081999121448960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“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,” Loudermilk said of that particular documentation.
“We’ve got lots of depositions, we’ve got lots of subpoenas, we’ve got video and other documents provided through subpoenas by individuals. But we’re not seeing anything from the Blue Team as far as reports on the investigation they did looking into the actual breach itself.”
The Georgia congressman added that his panel had not received “videos of all the depositions” either.
https://twitter.com/GCapital_LLC/status/1689114327943417857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Former President Trump, who was the main focus of the January 6th select committee, responded harshly to the reports that they failed to preserve documents.
“A Flagrant Violation of the law. They had so much to hide, and now that I have Subpoena Power, they didn’t want to get caught,” he wrote on Truth Social. “They knew EXACTLY what they were doing.”
Trump went on to call the committee’s actions an “egregious criminal act” and a “blatant disregard of the law.”
https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1689429754816905216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Loudermilk has a personal stake in the data and records obtained by the January 6th committee. The highly-partisan group openly accused him of conducting a ‘reconnaissance tour’ prior to the riot at the Capitol.
Despite the fact that the Capitol police flatly contradicted their claims, the committee continued to push the debunked conspiracy theory simply to plant the seeds of doubt.
Carlson made public a video showing Loudermilk giving a tour in a congressional office building down the street – not the Capitol – to constituents, none of whom were linked to the so-called “insurrection.”
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1632920856237158401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Further video releases cast doubt on several narratives put forth by the committee, including:
- The timing and manner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s death.
- Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) running out of the complex, allegedly fleeing from the mob that he supposedly helped instigate.
- Part of Ray Epps testimony – The tapes show Epps was on the grounds of the Capitol for at least 30 minutes after the time he told the committee that he was already heading back to his hotel.
It would be nice to see an investigation into why and how the committee was able to push debunked conspiracy theories and successfully doctored evidence.
Perhaps it lies somewhere in that 1.5 terabytes of data the committee failed to hand over.