House Republicans have released their own report on January 6, 2021 ahead of the coming presidential race between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in November.
The Republicans' report aims to discredit the January 6 Select Committee and absolve Trump of any responsibility for the Capitol breach, in which several thousand supporters entered the Capitol when they were not authorized to do so.
Chair of the House Administration Committee’s Oversight subpanel Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) led the report, which accused the now-defunct Democrat-controlled January 6 Select Committee of conducting a witch hunt designed to hurt Trump politically.
The report accuses the Capitol Police of security failures, suggests that the committee's star witness Cassidy Hutchinson was unreliable, and said that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made sure that Trump's guilt in the incident was predetermined.
“This House Administration Oversight Subcommittee investigation is necessary to correct the incomplete narrative advanced by the partisan Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and today’s initial report is an important step in that process,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement.
Critics of the Republican report point out that it didn't address Trump's refusal to accept the election results, his decision to have a rally in D.C. on the day of vote certification, or his directive for people to go to the Capitol to continue to protest, which he did ask to be "peaceful."
Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) called the Republican report "dishonest" and added, “Loudermilk is merely trying to deflect from Donald Trump’s responsibility for the violence of January 6th and his own refusal to answer the Select Committee’s questions."
Loudermilk's committee will hold a number of hearings about January 6 in the near future, starting with the pipe bombs that were found in the area that day, which no one was ever arrested for.
“Despite the threat the pipe bombs posed and the possible role they played in diverting resources away from the Capitol, the Select Committee invested almost no resources into investigating the pipe bombs,” the report read.
The committee also plans to delve more into Hutchinson's testimony, which they claim was inconsistent.
Hutchinson claims that she had bad legal counsel initially when she was using a Trump-paid lawyer, but that she was able to be more honest when she got her own counsel.
Her testimony that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol during the riot and tried to grab the steering wheel when he was told no by his Secret Service personnel was contradicted by the driver of the car and others present.
The Republican report obviously aims to put forward a better narrative for Trump, but it does make some valid points about the partisan nature of the Select Committee's report.
While in all likelihood neither one is 100% correct, it's clear that Trump didn't intend for the riot to occur or plan for it to happen.
