(LibertySociety.com) – Just two months before the 118th Congress began, incoming House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded the January 6th Committee preserve all records from its investigation. At no surprise to many, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-MS, responded to Speaker McCarthy, disagreeing with his claim that all of the committee’s work had to be archived. Thompson said that documents and interviews that they did not pursue or reference during hearings or committee press releases were not subject to the House rules and did not need to be retained.
Former President Trump was highly critical of the committee during each of its hearings, blasting former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for flagrantly lying about his actions on that day. He challenged the committee on several occasions to tell the truth about his speech, as they curiously left out his calls for a peaceful protest. His tweets after the violence began were also never disclosed during the hearings. Now, he has much to say about the news that the committee destroyed some of the records that he believes should have been retained.
In a Truth Social post, he said that the Department of Justice’s indictment of him should be withdrawn because now he is unable to access the destroyed documents. Some were used by the committee to recommend charges to the DOJ. During a Newsmax interview on August 9, Trump told Eric Bolling that the committee’s destruction of the documents is “a criminal act.” He added that the committee did not want Americans to see all of the documents because “the real answers were there, but they didn’t want to report it.”
Representative Brian Loudermilk, R-Ga., told Fox News on August 8 that Republicans have been unable to locate swaths of documents, video evidence, or the communications between the Biden White House and the committee. Loudermilk was falsely accused by the committee of helping “insurrectionists” to map out the building the day before the riot but was exonerated by the Capitol Police after video surveillance footage was obtained. Loudermilk said that the evidence the committee did retain was highly disorganized and did not contain any investigative documentation about security failures that day.
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