House GOP launches new panel to investigate Jan. 6
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks at a new conference on Capitol Hill on Jan. 22, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images.
House Republicans are launching a new committee dedicated to investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and "all events leading up to and after it."
Why it matters: Republicans hope that with allies soon to be leading the Justice Department and FBI, they will be able to dredge up new information that muddies the narrative about the deadly assault.
- "Our hope is we can work with Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel when they're all confirmed," said House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Driving the news: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced that the investigation will be led by a new select subcommittee under House Judiciary.
- Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who spent the last two years investigating Jan. 6 as the chair of the House Administration Committee's oversight subcommittee, will be the chair.
- Loudermilk, in a statement, said there were a "series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures" on Jan. 6 and vowed "needed reforms to ensure this level of security failure may never happen again."
- Johnson said Republicans are "proud of our work so far in exposing the false narratives peddled by the politically motivated January 6 Select Committee" and that there is "there is still more work to be done."
Between the lines: Loudermilk released a pair of reports last year mainly aimed at undermining and attacking the work of the Jan. 6 select committee.
- Jordan on Wednesday cited the pipe bombs planted outside the DNC and RNC headquarters on the morning of Jan. 6, as well as the presence of FBI sources at the attack, as potential new areas of inquiry.
The other side: House Administration Committee ranking member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) of Loudermilk's work on his panel, "Apparently he felt unsuccessful in the last two years, so they're doubling down."
- Loudermilk, he said, "files these reports without talking to anybody, no investigative work, no looking at the record, no interviewing people, it's just like if I had a fantasy world with no facts and just wrote it as though it really existed."
- Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who served on the Jan. 6 select committee, said the new subcommittee should "start by carefully reading" the bipartisan panel's final report and then pick up on its work.
- "Nobody has contradicted a single factual finding in there ... but if they can add to it, I certainly could suggest some new lines of inquiry for them," he said, noting that President Trump never testified to the panel.
Zoom out: Johnson earlier Wednesday, when asked about Trump's decision to pardon the vast majority of Jan. 6 defendants, including some convicted of violent crimes, said: "The president's made a decision, we move forward."
- "There are better days ahead of us, that's what we're excited about, we're not looking back," Johnson said.
Go deeper: Democrats hold rage session over Trump's Jan. 6 pardons
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
