A GOP oversight committee has requested additional documents between the Jan. 6 committee's key witness and others, Fox News reported. The demand includes communications between former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) asked Hutchinson for the information in a correspondence Wednesday. Loudermilk is the chairman of the Committee on House Administration’s oversight subcommittee, which is examining the earlier probe and looking to bust Cheney, the Jan. 6 committee's one-time vice chairwoman.
Also included was a request for "all communications referencing or referring to potential publishing or book deals or related compensation" as former President Donald Trump's ex-aide published her memoirs last year. Cheney and Hutchinson have bonded since the committee's original inquest.
"Liz Cheney is the leader that we all need to aspire to be, and she is the leader that we need as a country to come together and find people to elect people like Liz Cheney," Hutchinson gushed in a 2023 interview. Former White House deputy chief Anthony Ornato, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Secret Service agent Robert Engel were also included in the request.
Loudermilk is leading the subcommittee through the investigation into evidence missing from the Jan. 6 committee records. He said the Democrat-led investigation "failed to properly archive their records, including as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts, over one terabyte of digital data, and over 100 deleted or encrypted documents" related to the probe.
"Therefore, the Subcommittee must now determine what documents were not properly archived, and assess what documents are necessary to accomplish a productive investigation. The Subcommittee has no choice but to repeat much of the work of the Select Committee to understand their investigative findings," Loudermilk said in his letter.
While Hutchinson has given him some documents, Loudermilk noted that she did not furnish "all records, notes, or documents prepared by you for interviews with the Select Committee or the Department of Justice" in response to his request earlier this year. Moreover, what was provided to him was somehow not included in the archives for the Jan. 6 committee.
The missing pieces included Hutchinson's correspondence with Trump administration officials Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe. "As such, the Subcommittee is working to determine why the Select Committee did not archive these documents produced by or related to you," the Georgia Republican wrote.
"Given the extensive interviews, lengthy errata sheet, and ex parte conversations with Select Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, the failure to archive certain parts of your production is concerning," he added. Democrats are predictably running cover for the committee.
Former Jan. 6 committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) attempted to explain away Loudermilk's accusations. "This letter was not addressed to me, but I can tell you that Mr. Loudermilk’s previous correspondence to me has been riddled with significant factual errors," Thompson claimed.
"As I have said time and again, the Select Committee archived its official records in accordance with House rules. It seems Mr. Loudermilk is using this fishing expedition to distract from the fact that their release of security camera footage is completely failing to provide any evidence to support extreme MAGA Republican conspiracies about Jan. 6 — and is only bolstering the work we did in investigating the circumstances surrounding that terrible day," he added.
That's an ironic statement, considering the Jan. 6 committee's investigation was itself a fishing expedition designed to hook the king of all catches: President Trump. The committee's final report, released in December of 2022, ran 814 pages and blamed Trump for the incursion at the U.S. Capitol, the New York Post reported.
“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him," the Jan 6. committee's report stated.
The entire premise of the Jan. 6 committee investigation was poisoned with partisanship from the start. The latest probe perhaps seeks to uncover the truth without the politics.
