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.
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.
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.
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.
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.