GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia posed with House Speaker Mike Johnson for a photograph to mark the start of the next Congress and left with a guarantee that his investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will be formalized as a new committee.
The move solidifies the Republican Party’s effort to rewrite the narrative surrounding January 6 as a permanent fixture of its investigative agenda. It’s part of a broader effort from Republicans to continue several GOP-led investigations from the previous Congress now that the party will control both chambers of Capitol Hill and the White House.
The details of the new committee are still being worked out, Loudermilk told CNN, but one of the options would be to formulate it in a way that gives Johnson more control over who is appointed to the panel, known as a select committee, and the direction of its work.
Creating a new committee to elevate Loudermilk’s work, which included a report recommending the FBI prosecute GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney, keeps the Republican efforts to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from bearing any responsibility for the violence on January 6, front and center.
“It was so singularly focused that basically Trump created this entire problem,” Loudermilk said of the former January 6 select committee that Cheney helped lead. “When in reality, it was a multitude of failures at different levels.”
But even Loudermilk said he understands that referencing January 6 in the new panel’s title could send the wrong message.
“In one sense, it’s kind of a trigger for people. In another, it is even restrictive because January 6 isn’t the only security issue,” Loudermilk told CNN.
Johnson has publicly vowed that the new effort to investigate January 6 will be “fully funded.”
Continuing its investigation into the previous January 6 select committee – which featured Cheney as a vice chair and had another Republican member – and broader security response to the Capitol attack is not the only way Republicans plan to use their new majority to carry over their previous investigations that remain politically charged.
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Republicans re-issued subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and two Justice Department tax investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case on Monday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Those subpoenas would renew pursuits by the previous Congress that have been fought over in court – and not resolved – for months.
The restated subpoenas will be received by Trump’s Justice Department, which is expected to be much friendlier to congressional Republicans seeking documents and information.
One subpoena relates to Hur’s audio recordings of interviews between President Biden and his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, when they talked about classified information for a memoir after his term as vice president. There are a few pursuits of this in court, including from the right-wing Heritage Foundation and from media outlets including CNN seeking the release of these and other recordings obtained by Hur. The DOJ has repeatedly argued to judges these types of audio recordings shouldn’t be made public.
The subpoenas to the DOJ tax investigators, Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, are renewals from prior House Judiciary Committee subpoenas. The testimony wasn’t given, and the House sued the DOJ for not letting the men show up for depositions about Hunter Biden investigation. The court case here is on hold and before Judge Ana Reyes in the DC District Court.
An attorney for Daly declined to comment on Tuesday, and Morgan’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment.
And even before the start of their new majority, House Republicans signaled they may pursue investigations targeting special counsel Jack Smith over his two criminal cases against Trump and special counsel David Weiss over his handling of the tax and gun prosecutions of Hunter Biden, as their efforts to target the prosecutors went largely unanswered while the criminal probes were ongoing.
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