Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 committee pulled out all the stops to aggressively go after Donald Trump.
Now members of the committee are squirming as Republicans demand answers to some pointed questions about what happened to critical evidence.
Back in November, Rep. Kevin McCarthy—who was the incoming speaker—warned January 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, demanding the committee keep all documentation for the new GOP majority to sift through.
The new Republican majority has been busy looking into how the committee worked to weaponize the government in order to take down Donald Trump.
“It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” McCarthy had warned Thompson. “The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”
But the committee reportedly blew off that directive and could be on the hook for obstructing justice over destroying documents, witness testimony transcripts, and email messages.
“The House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 failed to adequately preserve documents, data and video depositions – including communications it had with the Biden White House that are still missing – according to the Republican lawmaker overseeing the GOP investigation into the committee’s work,” Fox News revealed in a report.
Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk tore into the committee over how it handled the documentation—especially the “blue team,” which was supposed to be looking into security failures on January 6.
“Nothing was indexed. There was no table of contents index. Usually when you conduct this level of investigation, you use a database system and everything is digitized, indexed. We got nothing like that. We just got raw data,” Loudermilk explained. “So, it took us a long time going through it and one thing I started realizing is we don’t have anything much at all from the Blue Team [which was to have investigated security lapses].”
It’s likely the committee wanted to cover up documentation the blue team was digging through since it likely reflected poorly on Nancy Pelosi and other Democrat Congressional leaders who failed to secure the Capitol ahead of January 6.
The committee’s reason for existence was to blame Donald Trump entirely for the Capitol riot in most Americans’ minds.
The committee’s destruction of that evidence also could affect Donald Trump’s case negatively as he prepares for his criminal trial.
Now GOP members of Congress are likely to start probing into the role committee members, including Adam Schiff, played in destroying those documents.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
