House Republican leaders are planning to subpoena the records of the select committee investigating Jan. 6, according to a senior GOP staffer on the House Administration Committee.
"When Republicans retake the majority, we will exercise our oversight responsibilities including subpoena authority to review all transcripts and information that the committee has access to in order to identify the truth," the staffer said, Axios reported Wednesday.
The talk is starting up again after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony last week, but Republican leaders have been threatening since earlier this year to issue the subpoenas after the committee subpoenaed several House Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
The committee's hearings have revealed a narrative seen by many as damaging to former President Donald Trump, including exhibits of testimony from Hutchinson, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and other former White House aides who testified they warned him that his continued claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him were wrong.
Meanwhile, one key GOP player, Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, which oversees election reforms and Capitol security, said in June that when the committee is under a GOP majority, it will launch a "full investigation" into the committee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
However, Davis, one of the Republicans who had originally been selected by McCarthy to sit on the House select committee, lost his primary bid for reelection on June 28 to Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., who was endorsed by Trump.
Republicans are disputing Hutchinson's testimony about Trump's state of mind and behavior during the Jan. 6 incidents, including her claims that he attacked Secret Service detail members who refused to take him to the Capitol, and her testimony about conversations with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., meanwhile, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on July 1 asking that the agency "review White House gate logs, surveillance videos, and all other records that could indicate which of these senior staff were present at the White House during the times referenced" during the Hutchinson testimony.
Members of the Jan. 6 committee declined an Axios request for comment, but Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill insisted that Pelosi was not responsible for the security failures on Jan. 6.
"Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination," Hammill said. "The former president’s desperate lies aside, the speaker was no more in charge of the security of the U.S. Capitol that day than [Senate GOP Leader] Mitch McConnell.”
The Jan. 6 committee may not be Republicans' only call for subpoenas against Democrats, as select committees may also be formed to investigate President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, the handling of the coronavirus, and Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.