Rep. Barry Loudermilk says investigators on the Jan. 6 committee created a final report as a political hit job on former President Donald Trump instead of an analysis of security failures the day the U.S. Capitol was breached by pro-Trump protesters.
Mr. Loudermilk, the Georgia Republican who heads up the oversight panel investigating the now-defunct House Select Committee on Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Democrats cherry-picked the evidence to build a biased political narrative against Mr. Trump.
“It was clear to me that they were only looking for evidence that supported the idea that Donald Trump organized and executed the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6,” he said in an exclusive interview with Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler.
Mr. Loudermilk also said his committee is aggressively investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ routine interaction with the Jan. 6 committee, which contributed to her racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 codefendants.
He called it “unprecedented” coordination between Congress and prosecutors.
“They are working with a district attorney at a state level, providing them with evidence while their investigation is ongoing,” he said. “This is highly concerning because we already know the select committee was suppressing exculpatory evidence from the American people. Were they also keeping that information from Fani Willis?”
The nine-member Jan. 6 committee was formed by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi several months after the Capitol riot. The committee’s mission was to “investigate the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol.”
Mr. Loudermilk said that the committee led witnesses in their questioning during taped depositions behind closed doors, as well as failed to ask key questions of other witnesses.
He said the Jan. 6 committee supported their narrative with highly edited videos that fueled false accusations that GOP lawmakers, including himself and his guests at the Capitol, were complicit in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
“They doxxed two of the people that were here that day. One of them has already lost a job. But the most egregious part of this, none of those folks were in the Capitol on Jan. 6, most of them were at the Ellipse,” he said.
“They never got even close to the Capitol. And the committee knew this. Even the U.S. Capitol Police wrote a letter exonerating this, saying, ‘We are trained to notice suspicious activity and there was nothing suspicious about this,’” Mr. Loudermilk said.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chaired the Jan. 6 committee, has steadfastly defended the committee’s work and its conclusions that Mr. Trump attempted a coup that day by sending his supporters to stop Congress’ certification of Mr. Biden’s election win.
“The Select Committee’s final report took into account the testimony of all witnesses,” he recently said. “Loudermilk is merely trying to deflect from Donald Trump’s responsibility for the violence of Jan. 6 and his own refusal to answer the select committee’s questions.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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