Jan. 6 panel to ask for preservation of phone records of GOP lawmakers who participated in Trump rally: report

The House committee investigating Jan. 6 is planning to seek the phone records of Republican lawmakers, including those who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack on the Capitol, according to reporting from CNN.

Sources told the outlet that among those the committee is contemplating are those who attended, helped plan or spoke at the rally.

That group reportedly includes Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jody Hice (Ga.), Scott Perry (Pa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio), whom Republicans once tapped to serve on the committee.

Former President Trump spoke at the rally, held just south of the White House, repeating the false claim he won the election.

“We will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide,” he said shortly before supporters marched from the rally to the Capitol during the certification of the 2020 election results.

A spokesman for the committee declined to comment on CNN’s report.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) previously said the panel would seek lawmaker records but refused to name names.

“We have quite an exhaustive list of people. I won’t tell you who they are, but it’s several hundred people that make up the list of people we are planning to contact,” he told reporters last week.

The request could tee up the first formal subpoenas from the committee after sending letters to numerous government agencies as well as tech companies requesting they turn over reams of documents. 

Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.), another Republican once slated to serve on the Jan. 6 committee before his selection was refused by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has indicated that Republican lawmakers would fight any seizure of their records.

“Rifling through the call logs of your colleagues would depart from more than 230 years of Congressional oversight. This type of authoritarian undertaking has no place in the House of Representatives and the information you seek has no conceivable legislative purpose,” Banks wrote in a letter to Thompson on Friday that was also sent to the general counsels of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.