Speaking on Wednesday, March 13, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia told Just the News’ John Solomon that members of the January 6 Committee could be referred by the House of Representatives to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. The basis of the charges against the individuals would likely be hiding and destroying documents.
As background, an investigation into the work of the January 6 Committee by the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Loudermilk, found that the January 6 Committee found in 2023 that the committee had destroyed documents and other evidence it collected. That destruction came despite a warning from then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to preserve records and evidence.
Speaking to John Solomon, Rep. Loudermilk said that the January 6 Committee had deleted, destroyed, moved to federal agencies, or locked behind unprovided passwords voluminous amounts of evidence, including interviews, transcripts, and other evidence. Rep. Loudermilk believes justice must be served on those who destroyed or otherwise made evidence inaccessible.
Commenting to Solomon about the matter when on Just the News, No Noise, he said, “As far as holding people accountable, yes, they should be.” He continued, “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.”
Continuing, Rep. Loudermilk added, “There’s still documents that we need to get hold off. We still don’t have passwords for the encrypted documents.” Further, speaking about how he was given the runaround by J6 Committee Chairman Thompson, he said, “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.’”
Pointing the finger of blame at J6 Committee member Liz Cheney, the anti-Trump Republican who used to represent Wyoming, he said, “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.”
Then, building on that, he said that they were considering a criminal referral to DOJ for obstruction, censure by Congress, or a referral to the House Ethics Committee for investigation over the evidence destruction. Elaborating on what could be done, he said, “Those are options. We also have to look at what other options are there. There’s also censure-ship, ethics, obviously, but also consider there are members of that Select Committee who are no longer members of Congress. So they may fall under a different scenario.”
Emphasizing that the issue is a new one, Rep. Loudermilk added, “So we do have the tools of members of Congress, but also, active members of Congress have certain protections. So we’ll have to work on that. Because as you talked about earlier, we’re in uncharted territory right now. And so we’re going to have to work through this.”
Watch Rep. Loudermilk here:
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