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House Republicans are launching their own version of a Jan. 6 committee that will “reinvestigate” what happened at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Georgia Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk will chair the new panel and says they will “investigate both sides” and “show what really happened on Jan. 6.”
“Loudermilk, who also serves as the chairman of the House Administration sub-committee on Oversight, said his panel will aggressively work to review the security failures that contributed to the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 and will investigate the conduct and performance of the prior House Jan. 6 select committee, which gathered millions of pages of documents and hundreds of interviews in 2021 and 2022, including with key members of the Trump inner circle,” CBS News reported.
Loudermilk also declared that the panel would consider seeking an interview with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including any decisions made about Capitol security ahead of Jan. 6.
“If we need to, we would like for her to come and talk to us about it,” Loudermilk said, adding the panel might seek to interview former members of the House select Jan. 6 committee.
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time going through documents,” he said. “Unfortunately, when the documents were preserved, they weren’t categorized very well. So, there were a lot of documents that were boxed up.”
“Loudermilk said his panel will also likely seek interviews with former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and the former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving about security decisions made ahead of the Jan. 6 attack. Other congressional panels and government auditors have already conducted investigations and released reports into security and intelligence failures, including a series of reviews by the Government Accountability Office and a report by the Senate Homeland Security committee,” CBS News reported.
“What I’d like to do is show what really happened on Jan. 6,” Loudermilk said. “When asked by CBS News what he meant by the phrase “what really happened,” he responded, “Where was the security failure and why were we not ready?”
House Republicans issued a scathing report exposing Pelosi for her role in security and intelligence failures at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Emails and text messages from Pelosi’s office reveal her staff held regular meetings discussing security detail, helped edit authorities’ plans, and turned down several requests from federal law enforcement needed to protect the Capitol on that day.
“Days after Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select committee recommended insurrection charges against former president Donald Trump over the Capitol riot, Republicans have hit back with a counter-investigation apportioning blame for the internal security breakdown on Jan. 6 to Pelosi and a dysfunctional Capitol Police intelligence division,” New York Post reported.
The New York Post reported:
“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021,” says the report, which is based on a trove of texts and email messages, and testimony from Capitol Police leaders and rank-and-file officers.
House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, who answered to Pelosi as one of three voting members of the Capitol Police Board, “succumbed to political pressures from the Office of Speaker Pelosi and House Democrat leadership,” was “compromised by politics and did not adequately prepare for violence at the Capitol.”
Pelosi and her staff “coordinated closely” with Irving on security plans for the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6, but Republicans were deliberately left out of “important discussions related to security.”
And, in an apparent attempt to hide from Republicans the fact that they were being excluded from discussions, Irving asked a senior Democratic staffer to “act surprised” when he sent “key information about plans for the Joint Session on Jan. 6, 2021, to him and his Republican counterpart.”
The staffer replied sardonically: “I’m startled!”
The report also claims that “staff within the House Sergeant at Arms office emailed Paul Irving that January 6th was Pelosi’s fault,” although it provides no evidence for the assertion.
The report said that the Speaker’s office “helped edit authorities’ plans, and turned down several requests from federal law enforcement needed to protect the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Democrats and the Jan. 6 Committee used the Capitol Police as a political prop, then did nothing when USCP officers were harassed for telling the truth. They should be ashamed,” Rep. Banks, who led the investigation after he was banned from participating in the January 6 Select Committee, said to The Federalist.
Republicans showed how the Speaker’s office coordinated with law enforcement prior to the incident and how Democrats were concerned about the optics of increased police and National Guard presence.
“I have no power over the Capitol Police. Does anybody not know that? The Capitol Police have responded to that gentleman’s allegation, and that stands as what it is. But I have no power over the police,” she said in February.
“This is false,” Republicans said as they said that their investigation and witnesses showed how “then-House Sergeant of Arms Paul Irving carried out his duties in clear deference to the Speaker, her staff, and other Democratic staff.”
“The [House sergeant at arms] had a pattern of and practice of seeking and obtaining permission from the Speaker for all security decisions,” Republicans said.
“Staff within the House Sergeant at Arms office emailed Paul Irving that January 6th was Pelosi’s fault,” Republicans said.
