Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives formed through a largely party-line vote on July 1, 2021, to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of that year.[1] The attack was a culmination of the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, which incumbent Republican Donald Trump lost against Democrat Joe Biden. The membership of the committee was a point of significant political contention, with House Republicans boycotting the committee except for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
The investigation commenced with public hearings on July 27, when four police officers testified. By the end of 2021, the committee had interviewed over 300 people.[2][3] Two witnesses, Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, have been held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify; Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury. The committee, as reported by The Washington Post in December 2021, was considering recommending that the U.S. Department of Justice open a criminal investigation into Donald Trump's involvement.[4]
Members, 117th congress
In July 2021, Thompson announced the senior staff for the committee. They included:[6]
In August 2021, Denver Riggleman, a former U.S. House representative, and Joe Maher, a principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, were hired as staffers,[7] and Timothy J. Heaphy was appointed as the committee's chief investigative counsel.[8]
History
In the aftermath of the 2021 United States Capitol attack, the proposal to form a bicameral commission failed due to a filibuster from Republicans in the Senate.[9] In late May, when it had become apparent that the filibuster would not be overcome, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated that she would appoint a select committee to investigate the events as a fallback option.[10][11][12][13]
On June 30, 2021, the resolution to form the committee passed by a vote of 222 to 190, with all Democratic members and two Republican members, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, voting in favor. Sixteen Republican members did not vote.[14] The resolution empowered Pelosi to appoint eight members to the committee, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy could appoint five members "in consultation" with Pelosi.[15] Pelosi indicated that she would name a Republican as one of her eight appointees.[16]
On July 1, Pelosi appointed eight members, seven Democrats and one Republican, Liz Cheney (R-WY); Bennie Thompson (D-MS) would serve as committee chair.[17] On July 19, McCarthy announced the five members he would recommend as the minority on the select committee. He recommended that Jim Banks (R-IN) serve as Ranking Member, and minority members be Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), and Troy Nehls (R-TX).[18] Banks, Jordan, and Nehls voted to overturn the Electoral College results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Banks and Jordan had also signed onto the Supreme Court case Texas v. Pennsylvania to invalidate the ballots of voters in four states.[19]
On July 21, Thompson stated in an interview that he would investigate Trump as part of the inquiry into Capitol attack.[20] Hours later, Pelosi said in a statement that she had informed McCarthy that she would reject the recommendations of Jordan and Banks, citing concerns for the investigation's integrity and relevant actions and statements made by the two members. She approved the recommendations of the other three.[21] McCarthy then pulled all of his picks for the committee and stated that he would not appoint anyone on the committee unless all five of his choices were approved.[22][23]
After McCarthy rescinded his recommendations, Pelosi appointed Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) to the committee.[24] Kinzinger was one of the ten House Republicans who voted for Trump's second impeachment.[25] Pelosi was also considering to hire a Republican as an outside committee staffer or advisor, such as former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who met with Cheney and Pelosi. Cheney voiced her support and pushed for both of their involvement.[25] On July 25, Pelosi officially announced the appointment of Kinzinger to the select committee.[26]
Investigation
The committee's work is ongoing. Its investigative teams each focus on a specific area like funding, individuals' motivations, organizational coalitions, and how Trump may have pressured other politicians.[27] As of the end of 2021, it had interviewed over 300 witnesses and obtained over 35,000 documents.[2]
While the investigation is still in progress, it publicly communicates some, but not all, of the information it finds. Public hearings are expected to begin in early 2022.[28] The chair of the committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, initially said he hoped the committee could complete its work by early 2022,[29] but a final report may not be published until summer.[28]
Ultimately, the committee's findings may be used to inform new legislation. For example, in October 2021, committee members were already collaborating to draft a bill that would clarify the procedures for certifying presidential elections.[30]
The committee's findings may also be used in arguments to hold individuals legally accountable. For example, Representative Liz Cheney, who serves on the committee, suggested that Trump may have committed a felony by obstructing the electoral certification proceedings. There are different types of obstruction; in this case, it could carry a relatively high maximum sentence of 20 years.[31] Seditious conspiracy, a charge brought against individuals including the leader of the Oath Keepers,[32] is a possible charge for Trump.[33][34] The committee was also considering wire fraud criminal referrals against Republicans who raised money off assertions of a stolen election they knew to be untrue.[35][36] The U.S. Department of Justice has the authority to bring criminal charges against political leaders.[37] Congress sometimes recommends criminal charges, but a "recommendation" or "referral" has no legal force in itself.[38] Trump's lawyers have argued that the committee's investigation should be properly limited to matters that have a "valid legislative purpose" and that any interest in recommending criminal charges, when expressed by the committee, may suggest that the committee's focus is impermissibly turning toward "law enforcement".[39]
A conviction, in turn, may be used to bar individuals from running for office in the future, as insurrectionists are constitutionally ineligible to hold public office. It is, however, unclear who enforces that.[40][41]
Revelations
Some of the most revealing information has come from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Although he may have failed to provide a complete set of requested documents,[42] he did provide thousands of emails and text messages[43][42] which revealed how certain people participated in efforts to overturn the election results:
- The day after the election, someone—likely former Texas governor and former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry—sent Meadows a proposed strategy for Republican-controlled state legislatures to choose electors and send them directly to the Supreme Court before their states had determined voting results.[44]
- Fox News host Sean Hannity exchanged text messages with Meadows suggesting that Hannity was aware in advance of Trump's plans for January 6. The committee wrote Hannity asking him to voluntarily answer questions.[45]
- Representative Jim Jordan asked Meadows if Vice President Mike Pence could identify "all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional".[46]
- The day after the riot, one text stated that "We tried everything we could in our objections to the 6 states. I'm sorry nothing worked."[47][46]
Some of the communications also revealed Trump allies who privately expressed disagreement with the events of January 6 while still defending Trump in public:
- Donald Trump Jr. pleaded with Meadows during the January 6 riot to convince his father that "it has gone too far and gotten out of hand."[48]
- Similarly, Fox News hosts Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham asked Meadows to persuade Trump to appear on TV and quell the riot.[49]
The committee has obtained firsthand testimony from multiple people in Trump's inner circle who say he was repeatedly advised during the riot to address the nation to stop the violence. His delay in doing so is being characterized as a possible "dereliction of duty".[50]
One of the most revealing documents provided by Meadows was a PowerPoint presentation[51][52][53] describing a strategy for overturning the election results. The presentation had been distributed by Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel (now owning a bar in Texas)[54] who specialized in psychological operations and who later became a Trump campaign associate. A 36-page version had metadata dating it to January 5.[55][56][52] A version was sent to Meadows on January 5,[57][58][59] and he provided a 38-page version to the Committee which, according to The Guardian, was not substantially different from the 36-page version.[55] It recommended that Trump declare a national security emergency to delay the January 6 electoral certification, invalidate all ballots cast by machine, and order the military to seize and recount all paper ballots.[57][58] (Meadows claims he personally did not act on this plan.[57]) Waldron was associated with former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn and other military-intelligence veterans who played key roles in spreading false information to allege the election had been stolen from Trump.[60][54]
Obstacles
One of the main challenges to the committee's investigation was Trump's use of legal tactics to try to block the release of the White House communication records held at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).[61] He succeeded in delaying the release of the documents for about five months. The committee received the documents on January 20, 2022.[62][63]
The committee began its request in August 2021.[64][65] Trump asserted executive privilege over the documents.[66] Current president Joe Biden rejected that claim,[67][68] as did a federal judge (who noted that Trump was no longer president),[69] the DC Circuit Court of Appeals,[70] and the U.S. Supreme Court.[71] While the request for NARA documents was being litigated, the committee agreed to a Biden administration request that they forego obtaining certain documents from NARA relating to sensitive national security matters that had no bearing on events of January 6.[72]
Another difficulty is that Trump has told Republican leaders not to cooperate with the committee.[73][74][75][76] While hundreds of people have testified voluntarily,[3] the committee has also had to issue dozens of subpoenas[77] to legally compel certain uncooperative individuals to testify. Some people who were subpoenaed nevertheless refused to testify: Roger Stone and John Eastman pleaded their Fifth Amendment rights, while Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows were found in contempt of Congress. In December 2021, Michael Flynn sued to block a subpoena for his phone records and to delay his testimony, though a federal judge dismissed his suit within a day.[78]
The American Conservative Union is providing legal defense funds for some people who resist the committee. The organization says it only assists people who do not cooperate with the committee and who oppose its mission, according to chairman Matt Schlapp.[79]
Subpoenas
By the end of 2021, the committee had interviewed over 300 people.[2][3] One of CNN's sources said that "many people every week" and sometimes "multiple people a day" are testifying.[43] Some testify voluntarily. When someone does not wish to testify or provide documents, the committee may issue subpoenas to legally compel the person to appear. As of January 19, 2022, it had subpoenaed at least 63 people[77] (scheduling them to testify on various dates[209]) plus the phone records of over 100 people.[210] A dozen people as of December 22, 2021 had sued to prevent the release of their phone records.[211] The committee may have issued additional subpoenas that it has not revealed publicly.[43] Representative Thompson, the committee chair, told NBC's Meet the Press on January 2, 2022 that the committee was still unsure whether it had the authority to subpoena sitting members of Congress, but he said they would have "no reluctance" to do so if it is deemed possible.[212]
Reactions
Prior to committee formation
According to several reports, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had warned Republican members that if they allowed Speaker Pelosi to appoint them to the select committee, they would be stripped of all their other committee assignments and should not expect to receive any future ones from Pelosi. In an interview with Forbes, Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said "Who gives a shit" and added, "When you've got people who say crazy stuff and you're not gonna make that threat, but you make that threat to truth-tellers, you've lost any credibility."[248]
House Leader McCarthy called the rejection of his initial recommendations "unprecedented" in a phone call with Pelosi. In a press conference, he labeled her a "lame duck speaker" out to destroy the institution. The Freedom Caucus pushed for McCarthy to file a motion to vacate the speakership, and punish Cheney and Kinzinger for accepting their appointments to the committee.[249][250] McCarthy later dubbed them "Pelosi Republicans."[80][81] Republicans also stated that if they won the House majority in the 2022 midterm elections, they would come after Democratic committee assignments, targeting Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar.[250] Steve Scalise stated that Pelosi had removed any credibility from the committee for rejecting their recommended members and opted instead for a political narrative.[250] Republicans Scott Perry, Chip Roy, and Kelly Armstrong expressed their disdain for both Cheney and Kinzinger and questioned their loyalty to the House Republican Conference, pushing for them to be stripped of their committee assignments.[249][80] Jim Banks and Mike Rogers stated that the two GOP committee members would be stuck to Pelosi's narrative of events.[80] Cheney and Kinzinger both dismissed comments from their colleagues.[80]
After Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's picks for the committee, The Wall Street Journal editorial board criticized Pelosi's rejection of McCarthy's picks. It acknowledged that McCarthy's picks were partisan, but claimed that Adam Schiff, who was appointed by Pelosi, had "lied repeatedly about the evidence concerning the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia." The editorial board posited, "if Mrs. Pelosi thinks the evidence for her conclusion is persuasive, why would she not want to have it tested against the most aggressive critics?"[251] On the other hand, the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board said: "Pelosi's chief mistake was not also rejecting Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, who, like Jordan, Banks and a majority of House Republicans, voted to overturn the election on the day of the insurrection. No serious investigation of the riot can be undertaken by those who shared the goals of the rioters." It added that "McCarthy and company killed an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the attack even though the Republicans' top negotiator agreed to the terms."[252]
After committee formation
Some House Republicans—including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Jim Jordan—said they did not watch the committee's first hearing on July 27, 2021. Representative Matthew M. Rosendale said he watched Representative Liz Cheney speak (and was "quite disappointed") but did not watch the police officers' testimony. Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik would not say whether she watched.[253]
In late August 2021, after the committee asked telecommunications and social media companies to retain certain records, McCarthy declared that if the companies "turn over private information" to the House committee, then the companies are "in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States", and that a future Republican legislative majority will hold the companies "fully accountable".[254] In response to McCarthy's comment, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint on September 3 with the chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics. CREW noted that the subpoena was legally valid and claimed that McCarthy was illegally obstructing the investigation insofar as he was “threatening retaliation" against the telecommunications companies.[255] Eleven House Republicans who were associated with the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally sent a September 3 letter to thirteen telecommunications companies stating they "do not consent to the release of confidential call records or data" and threatened legal action against what they asserted were unconstitutional subpoenas.[256][257][258][259]
During a September 2 television interview, McCarthy was asked about "how deeply [Trump] was involved," to which he replied that the FBI and Senate committees had found "no involvement."[260] He and other Republicans had cited an exclusive Reuters report that unnamed current and former law enforcement officials said the FBI had found "scant evidence" of an organized plot to overturn the election. In a September 4 statement, Thompson and Cheney said the committee had queried executive branch agencies and congressional committees investigating the matter and "it's been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless."[261][262]
On October 16, The Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson criticized the committee's glacial progress, stating that "I don't believe that they're pursuing this with the degree of vigor that merits the type of targets they're talking about. We're dealing with people like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone and Ali Alexander ... They've had three months, they've done almost nothing."[263]
Representative Scott Perry said on December 21 that he would not cooperate with the committee because, in his view, the committee itself was "illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the rules of the US House of Representatives."[264] Similarly, on January 23, 2022, Newt Gingrich said on Fox News that he believed the committee was breaking laws, but he did not specify which laws.[265]
On December 23, Laurence Tribe, American legal scholar and University Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at Harvard University, and colleagues published in The New York Times about Attorney General Merrick Garland: "Only by holding the leaders of the Jan. 6 insurrection — all of them — to account can he secure the future and teach the next generation that no one is above the law. If he has not done so already, we implore the attorney general to step up to that task."[266]
Polling
According to a poll conducted in July 2021 by Politico, a majority of Americans support the January 6 investigation, with 58% overall supporting and 29% opposing; 52% of Republicans polled opposed it.[267] When Politico repeated the poll in December 2021, again, three-fifths supported the committee, including 82% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 40% of Republicans.[268]
In an August 2021 Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, 58% of American voters said they thought the committee was biased, while 42% thought it was fair.[269] In September 2021, a Pew Research poll found that only 11% of American adults said they were very confident the committee would be fair and reasonable while another 34% were somewhat confident, while a 54% majority said they were not too confident (32%) or not at all confident (22%). Confidence was highly partisan: Nearly two-thirds of Democrats and less than a quarter of Republicans said they were at least somewhat confident.[270]
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