The Democrats’ illegally established and since-disbanded partisan Select Committee on Jan. 6 ran a two-year operation to frame political opponents as criminal insurrectionists and then covered up members’ own misconduct.
According to a nearly 130-page interim report released Tuesday by House Republicans who reviewed the panel’s work, lawmakers under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s direction suppressed evidence that contradicted the committee’s narrative, circumvented a key witnesses’ legal representation, and deleted more than a terabyte of digital data related to the investigation.
Georgia Republican Barry Loudermilk, the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight who led the probe into the probe, wrote in the report’s introduction letter that his team’s findings “reveals that there was not just one single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.”
“It was a series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities,” said Loudermilk. “Even amid multiple failures, there were two common elements that significantly contributed to the security issues: an excessive amount of political influence on critical decisions, and a greater concern over the optics than for protecting life and property.”
Many of the failures around “optics” had already been previously reported by House Republicans who exposed Pelosi’s refusal to deploy the National Guard multiple times ahead of the riot.
“But as with many government scandals, the cover up of evidence exacerbated our efforts to find the facts and expose the truth,” Loudermilk said.
Data Deleted
According to the report, House investigators sought to examine as many as 900 interviews taped by the Select Committee. More than a terabyte of digital data, however, including video records of the interviews, were not archived by the Democrats’ panel.
Of the documents that were provided to Loudermilk’s staff, “the Select Committee delivered more than 100 encrypted, password protected documents and never provided the passwords.”
“The failure to provide the Subcommittee with these records raises serious concerns about the content of the records and their contribution to the Select Committee’s narrative,” read Tuesday’s report.
Loudermilk’s investigators did, however, obtain footage of Pelosi recorded on Jan. 6, 2021, from HBO which was in possession of film taped by the congresswoman’s daughter, Alexandra, for a documentary on the speaker. The footage, some of which was released by House Republicans earlier this year, shows the Democrat leader acknowledging she bears “responsibility” for the National Guard’s absence while she evacuates the Capitol.
“Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?” Pelosi asked her chief of staff incredulously. “They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.”
The film was neither archived nor released by Pelosi’s Select Committee and only became public because of Loudermilk’s direct requests from HBO, according to the latest House report.
Cheney Cover-Up
While Republican investigators were hamstrung from a complete review of the committee’s taxpayer-funded inquisition, Loudermilk’s staff did conduct a thorough investigation of the Pelosi panel’s outlandish claims with testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson. The former aide to ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows sensationalized the televised show trials of the Jan. 6 Committee when she claimed then-President Donald Trump tried to violently hijack his limousine and drive himself to the Capitol as the riot unfolded. Hutchinson was immediately contradicted by the same sources she cited in her public congressional hearing but was celebrated by Trump’s opponents as the panel’s star witness.
The latest report from House Republicans outlined eight findings related to Hutchinson’s explosive testimony, including the backdoor channels the committee’s vice chair, then-Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., took to circumvent the former White House aide’s attorney, Stefan Passantino. Investigators not only exonerated Trump of the allegations he assaulted Secret Service agents, sought to personally riot at the Capitol, and hang his vice president, but also found evidence the committee coordinated to disbar Passantino.
“The Select Commitee did this by using the content of its not-yet-public report to accuse Passantino of instructing Hutchinson to lie,” the report read, though Passantino was cleared of wrongdoing after multiple investigations into his representation of Hutchinson.
The report also highlighted how Cheney coordinated with Hutchinson without Passantino’s knowledge as the Select Committee targeted his law license. Passantino has since filed his own bar complaint against Cheney and a $67 million lawsuit against the federal government which are now the last remaining open opportunities for court discovery into the disgraced ex-congresswoman’s conduct.
National Guard
Loudermilk’s report dedicated nearly 40 pages to six major findings related to the Department of Defense. While the Select Committee sought to depict Trump as an apathetic commander-in-chief who relished the violence interrupting a joint session of Congress, the president had actually pled with Democrat leaders to accept reinforcements of 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the nation’s capital. Cheney, however, suppressed evidence of Trump’s requests as the Jan. 6 Committee ran its investigation with predetermined outcomes.
According to the latest House report, Trump’s demands for National Guard troops to be ready in the capital for Jan. 6 were met with resistance from top officials at the Defense Department.
Acting Defense Secertary Christopher Miller “dismissed President Trump’s January 3, 2021, order to use any and all military assets necessary to ensure safety for the planned demonstrations on January 6, 2021,” the report read. “To date, no investigation or disciplinary action has taken place against Acting Secretary of Defense Miller for his failure to follow directives from the sitting Commander-in-Chief.”
Miller had reportedly told the Defense Department inspector general “there was absolutely — there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. Military forces at the Capitol,” even after the government had placed federal troops in the capital the prior summer to handle the George Floyd riots.
House investigators also reported that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy “intentionally delayed the D.C. National Guard response” as demonstrators descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. McCarthy, investigators wrote, had even “deliberately deceived congressional leaders by stating that D.C. National Guard was physically moving to the Capitol, with full knowledge these forces had yet to receive any orders.”
In November, Loudermilk demanded the inspector general for the Department of Defense correct an official report surrounding the National Guard deployment on Jan. 6 to reflect the bureaucratic resistance. The Pentagon, however, withheld key details of deep state delays from public view and congressional investigators on the Jan. 6 Committee.
“The Subcommittee’s investigation has concluded that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed the deployment of the DC [National Guard] to the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Loudermilk wrote to the inspector general. “The Subcommittee also maintains that the DoD IG knowingly concealed the extent of the delay in constructing a narrative that is favorable to DoD and Pentagon leadership.”
