Rep. Loudermilk wants Jan. 6 committee members who suppressed evidence to be held accountable
By isabelle // 2024-03-18
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House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) has announced that he might make referrals for criminal obstruction or House ethics violations related to the January 6 Select Committee. He expressed his frustration over the fact that much of the evidence that the committee gathered for their inquiry, including videotapes and transcripts of crucial interviews, has been suppressed. Some documents and interviews have been moved to other federal agencies, while others have been outright deleted or destroyed. In addition, some of the evidence is conveniently locked behind passwords that have not been provided to the oversight subcommittee for its investigation. In an interview on the Just the News, No Noise show, Loudermilk said that he believes those who acted wrongly on the January 6 committee should be held accountable. “But I think that's going to be a little ways down the road, because there is so much more information that we need to get. And we need to build not only this, to get the truth out to the American people, but see just how big this case potentially is for obstructing,” he added. On the program, he also criticized Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi). He said he thinks that Thompson, who was the chairman of the committee, gave too much control to former representative Liz Cheney, who was the Republican vice chairwoman of the committee. According to Loudermilk, Thompson has not handed over the passwords he needs to access encrypted documents. “It's amazing that you know, when I asked the former Chairman Bennie Thompson, ‘all I want you to do is give me the passwords.’ He said, ‘I don't even know what you're talking about.’ “Well, I think it's coming down to he probably didn't, because now new information we're getting is that Liz Cheney ran that committee.” Loudermilk said that once he has been able to review the evidence that remains missing and determine who was responsible for the committee's actions, he will decide how to seek accountability. Some of the possibilities are censure by congress, a referral to the House ethics committee, or a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for obstruction. However, some of the members who acted inappropriately are no longer in Congress, which means that a different approach may be needed. It is also worth noting that active members of Congress do have a significant amount of immunity from punishment in criminal court for their actions in Congress.

Report found that evidence that could have exonerated Trump was suppressed

The interview was held just two days after Loudermilk's panel released an interim report that revealed how the committee withheld bombshell evidence from the public contradicting a number of claims made by the Democrats in their final inquiry report into the events. For example, the report concluded that Donald Trump did instruct his staff to provide the capital with 10,000 National Guard troops for additional security ahead of January 6 and that the tragedy that took place that day could have been avoided if city officials, congressional leaders and Capitol Police had taken intelligence suggesting the possibility of violence that day more seriously. The report concluded that everything that went down on January 6 was preventable, adding: “The politicization of Capitol security directly contributed to the many structural and procedural failures witnessed that day.” It also detailed how the January 6 committee hired Hollywood producers to edit footage for their prime-time hearings and explained how the committee was improperly constructed. Loudermilk also accused the January 6 committee of seeking to promote a political narrative. “For nearly two years, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's January 6th Select Committee promoted hearsay and cherry-picked information to promote its political goal – to legislatively prosecute former President Donald Trump." Sources for this article include: JustTheNews.com FoxNews.com
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