House GOP launches probe into Jan. 6 panel

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, is leading an investigation of the dissolved Jan. 6 select committee and security failures surrounding the riot.

The probe is in its beginning stages, Loudermilk said Wednesday.

“We’ve got to get through the documents. We need to do some interviews with people. But at some point, we will have some hearings,” Loudermilk said, also adding the panel is reviewing video from Jan. 6, 2021. 

The House Administration Committee has set up a “Capitol Security Info” portal on its website to collect tips from “individuals with knowledge of the events of January 6th and the Select Committee” about the security of the Capitol, delay in support from the National Guard and more.

“We need to give a serious, in-depth investigation into what happened that day, which the J6 committee didn’t do. We need to know, where were the security failures … as well as what do we need to do to fix it?” Loudermilk said.

Loudermilk was unsure if he will aim to talk to any members of the Jan. 6 select committee – and if he does, whether subpoenas would be on the table.

“I would hope that, you know, they’d just come and talk. This is not going to be a gotcha. This is getting to the truth,” Loudermilk said. 

Republicans have long criticized the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which disbanded at the end of the last Congress, for placing large focus on former President Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riots rather than on the security posture of the Capitol on that day.

In December, the Republicans who were originally selected by now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to sit on the Jan. 6 select committee — then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shot down his choices — released a counter-report about security failures. That report largely focused on changes to Capitol Police security protocols leading up to Jan. 6.

A bipartisan Senate report in 2021 also focused on the security, planning and response failures relating to the Jan. 6 attack. 

Loudermilk has some personal beef with the select committee, which asked him to sit for voluntarily interview to discuss a tour he gave to constituents in a House office buildings on Jan. 5, 2021. Loudermilk did not sit for the interview.

Video shared by the committee claimed that one of the men from that tour marched toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, saying: “There’s no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler. We’re coming for you.”

Loudermilk’s office last year shared a letter from the Capitol Police chief saying of its own review of the footage: “We do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”

Loudermilk appeared on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show this week as a part of a segment revealing never-before-seen security footage from Jan. 6, after McCarthy granted Carlson access to the footage.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Wednesday that Democrats owe Loudermilk an apology.

“They implied things about him that weren’t true that those tapes revealed,” Scalise said.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who was chairman of the committee, declined to offer an apology to Loudermilk on Wednesday.

“All he had to do was come and testify before the committee and we could have cleared it up,” Thompson said, also denying that the select committee implied that Loudermilk helped insurrectionists by giving the tour.

Thompson also said that he was not concerned about GOP oversight of the committee’s activities.

“We concluded our works, and we move on,” Thompson said.