Republicans pledge probe into Jan. 6 investigation

House Republicans announced their intent to conduct their own investigation into the Jan. 6 committee should they overtake leadership of the chamber.

The minority on the House Committee on Administration sent a letter asking the select committee investigating the 2021 attack on the Capitol to preserve all its records, a preamble to obtaining those documents in what would become an investigation into an investigation.

“When Republicans once again hold the gavel and I am Chairman of the House Administration Committee, one of our first priorities is going to be launching a full investigation into Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] and the Select Committee’s circus,” Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) wrote in a letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the Jan. 6 committee.

A spokesman for the panel declined to comment.

The letter comes just hours before the Jan. 6 committee is set to hold its first public hearing during prime time on Thursday.

Even as the committee prepares to share with the world what it’s learned over months of closed-door interviews, it’s been largely proprietary over the materials it’s gathered, rejecting a request from the Department of Justice to share its depositions.

While Davis’s letter cites “on-going questions concerning the Select Committee’s compliance with federal law and House Rules,” courts have largely rebuffed those arguments, siding with the committee in litigation seeking to block its ability to access information.

The GOP elsewhere on Thursday sought to show an eagerness into investigating the riots on Jan. 6, despite boycotting the committee after Pelosi rejected the conference’s picks for Republican members. 

“We’d like to get to the bottom of why this Capitol was so ill-prepared,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters in a briefing Thursday, pointing to a letter from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), one of his initial picks to serve on the Jan. 6 panel.

The letter from Banks to Pelosi includes a familiar Republican focus on the security failings leading up to the attack, but also seeks to determine whether the speaker played any role in limiting assistance for lawmakers that day.

Pelosi has dismissed the idea, saying she has no control over security measures taken for the Capitol.