Republicans Seek Jan. 6 Records Disbanded House Committee Failed to Keep

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on May 6, 2019. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are seeking records they say the disbanded House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol failed to keep.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House employee, provided the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol with reams of documents, including communications between herself and other officials.

However, some of what she provided was not archived by the Democrat-led select panel, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said on May 15.

That includes messages between Ms. Hutchinson and Stefan Passantino, a lawyer who worked in the White House during former President Donald Trump’s presidency, represented Ms. Hutchinson for a period of time, and now works for President Trump’s company.

Messages between Ms. Hutchinson and reporter Jake Sherman, political consultant Susan Wiles, former Trump administration official Kash Patel, and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe are also missing despite being provided to the select committee, Republicans on the House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee said.

“The subcommittee has no choice but to repeat much of the work of the select committee to understand their investigative findings,” Mr. Loudermilk told Ms. Hutchinson in the letter on May 15.

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He asked her to provide the documents, and messages between her and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), by May 29.

Ms. Cheney was one of two Republicans picked to join the select committee by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). No other Republicans served on the panel after former House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) withdrew his selections after Ms. Pelosi refused to allow some of them to be part of the select committee.

Ms. Hutchinson’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

She previously provided some materials to the oversight subcommittee but not, as requested, all of the documents she had given to the since-disbanded panel.

Failed to Keep

Mr. Loudermilk and his subcommittee have been probing the response to the Capitol breach and the work done by the panel, which was headed by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

The panel did not keep videos of hundreds of interviews and depositions it conducted, Mr. Thompson has acknowledged, describing transcripts as sufficient. He also disclosed to Mr. Loudermilk that the select committee loan some documents to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for reviews to make sure no sensitive information was made public.

“The select committee did not have the opportunity to properly archive that material with the rest of its records with the benefit of the Executive Branch’s guidance to ensure witness safety, our national security, and law enforcement sensitive information,” Mr. Thompson said in one letter, although he also said the materials were archived in other places.

Mr. Thompson said the select committee archived more than four terabytes of data, but Republicans said they received less than three terabytes. One terabyte can contain about 6.5 million pages of documents, 500 hours of video, or 250,000 pictures.

Among the missing information were transcripts of some of the interviews the select committee conducted.

A forensic analysis commissioned by the subcommittee uncovered evidence of more than 100 deleted or password-protected files, the subcommittee said in its recent interim report. One of the recovered files showed that a White House employee sat for an interview with the select committee. Before the file was recovered, there was no indication that the person, whose name the subcommittee has declined to release, was interviewed.

Mr. Thompson said in an earlier statement that Mr. Loudermilk “is attempting to exonerate the ex-president by laundering conspiracy theories, such as supposedly missing records” but that Republicans actually have “all of the select committee’s archived records.”

Mr. Loudermilk has released information not made public by the select committee, including portions of an interview with a Secret Service agent who was President Trump’s driver on Jan. 6. Ms. Hutchinson testified that she was told by a Secret Service official that President Trump lunged at the wheel of a vehicle on Jan. 6, but the driver testified that the president did not.

In another transcript made public by the subcommittee, a White House official said that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser was offered 10,000 National Guard personnel ahead of Jan. 6.