NEW: Republicans Move To Form Their Own Jan 6 Committee

House Republicans are moving to establish a long-promised committee to investigate the previous iteration of the January 6 subcommittee, which was formed under controversial circumstances and has been accused of destroying records, presenting false information and more.

According to a report from The Hill, a resolution to establish the committee was filed on Wednesday, House GOP leaders told the outlet. The move comes after the issue has been left on the back burner for the first six months of President Donald Trump’s tenure.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who will be leading the effort, presented his plans for the panel directly to President Trump and earned his approval. It will be several weeks before the committee is formally established, as the House is set to leave town shortly for the August recess, pushing a vote back to September at the earliest.

As a select subcommittee, all the members will be subject to the approval of the Speaker. This mirrors the establishment of the Democrats’ iteration of the panel, as then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused to allow Republican leadership to appoint their own members, specifically taking issue with now Senator Jim Banks (R-IN) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).

Instead Pelosi appointed now-ousted Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney — both of whom have since left the party and backed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election — resulting in a completely one-sided panel.

The subcommittee will fall under the purview of the Judiciary Committee and will be chaired by Loudermilk, who led a number of investigations into the January 6 Capitol protests and associated prosecutions under the previous Congress.

“House Republicans are proud of our work so far in exposing the false narratives peddled by the politically motivated January 6 Select Committee during the 117th Congress, but there is clearly more work to be done,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told The Hill. “The resolution introduced today will establish this Select Subcommittee so we can continue our efforts to uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people. House Republicans remain intent on delivering the answers that House Democrats skipped over.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2017
Photo: Gage Skidmore

In addition to the deviation from House precedent, the partisan January 6 Committee has been accused of a wide range of misconduct.

In 2023, Rep. Loudermilk revealed that the committee had destroyed documents, text messages and other records. This was done despite orders from incoming House Speaker McCarthy to preserve all records relating to the investigation.

“As far as holding people accountable, yes, they should be,” Loudermilk said of committee members in an interview with Just The News last year. “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.”

The January 6 committee — which hired a Hollywood producer to spice up its primetime hearings — telegraphed numerous bits of misinformation to the American people. In one instance, the committee aired testimony from former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who claimed that Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of a secret service vehicle and drive back to the Capitol when the protests devolved into a riot. This claim has been thoroughly debunked by Secret Service agents.

The committee also cherry-picked video footage and failed to mention that police caused the riot by firing crowd control munitions. This footage, along with 14,000 additional hours, were hidden from the American people in favor of cherry-picked clips.

Loudermilk has also confirmed that the committee — which interviewed hundreds of witnesses as part of the investigation — deleted all of its deposition tapes. “I can confirm that. And all of the videotapes of all depositions are gone. Again, we found out about this early in the investigation when I received a call from someone who was looking for some information off one of the videotapes and we started searching and we had none,” Loudermilk said.

The Georgia lawmaker explained that he asked Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who chaired the January 6 committee, if he could view the tapes. Thompson wrote back stating that the tapes were not preserved, adding that the committee felt they didn’t have to.

“He didn’t feel that they had to, but according to House rules, you have to preserve any data and information and documents that are used in an official proceeding, which they did. They actually aired portions of these tapes on their televised hearings, which means they had to keep those, but yet he chose not to,” the congressman added.

Loudermilk does believe that the tapes exist somewhere and stressed that recovering them is a top priority. “Even with Cassidy Hutchinson, people have asked why do you need the videos? You’ve got written transcripts. Well, when you’ve got someone like Cassidy, who is significantly changing her testimony, I want to see what her body language is when she gave her original testimony. I want to see what her voice inflection is,” he said.