WASHINGTON — Republican efforts to formally rewrite the historical past of the Jan. 6, 2021, rebel on the U.S. Capitol — and President Donald Trump’s function in it — are poised to succeed in dizzying new heights.
Although Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) first introduced {that a} new Jan. 6 committee can be fashioned seven months in the past, it was not till Wednesday that Home Republicans quietly handed authorization for a brand new committee in a procedural vote tied to wholly unrelated measures.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chaired an analogous committee within the earlier Congress, is ready to guide the brand new panel. “We were just cracking open some new information when it ended last time,” Loudermilk stated, similar to new particulars about paid FBI informants who’d been involved with rioters. The Justice Division’s inspector normal stated in December 2024 that FBI informants had been on the scene, however performed no function in orchestrating the riot.
HuffPost requested Loudermilk if he contends that Trump supporters didn’t assault the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to disrupt the certification of Trump’s election loss the earlier November. He stammered in response.
“I have not seen — well, I mean, you got to define the president’s support, you know, Trump supporter. Was he engaged in it? We’ve seen no evidence whatsoever that he was engaged in that,” Loudermilk stated.
To recap: Trump lied about election fraud for months, informed his supporters to come back to Washington for a “wild” rally, informed them to “fight like hell” throughout a speech close to the White Home, then informed them to go to the Capitol, the place they fought like hell in opposition to police, breached the constructing and despatched lawmakers — and then-Vice President Mike Pence — scurrying into undisclosed places.
And as for any “evidence” that Trump was concerned in efforts to cease the certification of former President Joe Biden’s victory, the chance for the general public to be taught extra was largely foreclosed on after Trump received the 2024 election. With the sweeping immunity granted to presidents by the Supreme Court docket, particular counsel Jack Smith’s probe on the topic was shortly shuttered.
Democrats didn’t hesitate to state the plain: The Republican Jan. 6 committee is an effort to rewrite historical past.
“They’re trying to pretend that the mob didn’t attack on January 6,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the unique Jan. 6 committee, informed HuffPost. “I guess they think the American people must be stupid, because we on the committee did an extensive bipartisan report, and then we posted the findings everywhere.”
One other former member of the unique Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), stated he would fortunately serve on the brand new panel, which is a subcommittee of the Home Judiciary Committee.
“They have not laid a glove on a single factual finding of the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and so all they are doing is giving us the opportunity to educate younger generations of Americans about what happens when you listen to an authoritarian who wants to disregard the rule of law,” Raskin informed HuffPost.
“They’re trying to pretend that the mob didn’t attack on January 6. I guess they think the American people must be stupid.”
– Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
A decision for the brand new committee describes it as an effort to research the “remaining questions surrounding Jan. 6, 2021,” a curious label since Republicans in 2021 balked at organising the type of bipartisan fact-finding fee Congress normally creates after main disasters.
And many Home Republicans, when given the possibility to cooperate voluntarily with the unique Jan. 6 choose committee, by and huge refused to take action — even when formally subpoenaed. Then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) selected two Republican members for the committee: then-Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Sick.). Each have since been drummed out of the Republican Celebration.
Loudermilk discovered himself briefly scrutinized by the unique Jan. 6 committee after safety footage from Jan. 5 emerged displaying what committee members stated seemed to be the lawmaker giving an obvious “reconnaissance” tour to a small group of Trump supporters contained in the Capitol advanced. A few of his visitors had been on the rally the following day, however weren’t charged with crimes; Capitol Police stated nothing was suspicious concerning the tour.
Certainly one of Loudermilk’s guests, nonetheless, did flip up in video footage acquired by the committee. Loudermilk’s visitor filmed one other man wielding a sharpened flagpole as they walked towards Trump’s rally, and when the flagpole-wielding man stated the makeshift weapon was “for a certain person,” Loudermilk’s customer replied: “That’s right. That’s for somebody special.” Later that day, Loudermilk’s customer walked towards the Capitol and filmed himself threatening to drag lawmakers out of the Capitol by “their hairs.”
Nathan Posner/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
Loudermilk’s run-in with the unique Jan. 6 committee led to his curiosity in main a counter committee. He informed HuffPost final yr he was tapped for the job “because I had first-hand experience of how the select committee cherry-picked and manipulated information to come up with a false narrative.”
Lofgren stated Loudermilk by no means answered the committee’s questions on his tour, which was not included within the closing report.
“All we asked was, ‘Who is this guy, how did this happen?’” Lofgren stated. “He never answered.”
This week, Loudermilk insisted there are vital questions remaining about how the Capitol was breached — questions that don’t have anything to do with Donald Trump, in fact.
“My focus has always been, ‘How were they able to breach this Capitol?’ That should have never happened with the intelligence resources that we have, the number of law enforcement resources we have in this town. How in the world did that happen? That’s what I’m focused on,” Loudermilk stated.
A report from Democrats on the Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee in 2023 discovered that the FBI and Division of Homeland Safety neglected plenty of tips on looming violence on Jan. 6, notably these coming from far-right extremists just like the Proud Boys.
Whereas some intelligence companies had been conscious of calls to violence proliferating on social media from these teams, in addition to 1000’s of people, the intelligence neighborhood didn’t see the threats as “credible.” The 2023 report confirmed that almost all companies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.”
