Loudermilk told CNN that while the specifics of the new committee are still being worked out, one possibility is to give Johnson more control over the panel’s composition (referred to as a “select committee”) and operations.
The creation of a new committee to draw attention to Loudermilk’s work—which included a report that recommended the FBI charge former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney—keeps the Republican campaign focused on preventing President Donald Trump from being held accountable for the January 6 violence.
Loudermilk described the previous January 6 select committee, which Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney assisted in leading, as “so singularly focused that basically Trump created this entire problem.” “When, in fact, there were numerous failures at various levels.”
Johnson has declared in public that the new investigation into January 6 will be “fully funded.”
“Continuing its investigation into the previous January 6 select committee – which featured Cheney as a vice chair and had another Republican member – and broader security response to the Capitol attack is not the only way Republicans plan to use their new majority to carry over their previous investigations that remain politically charged,” according to CNN.
According to two people familiar with the situation, Republicans reissued subpoenas on Monday regarding two Justice Department tax investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case and special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, CNN reported. The outlet also stated that those subpoenas would revive previous Congress’s efforts that have been contested in court and not settled for months.
This week, Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, discussed the Jan. 6 committee and rumors that President Joe Biden was thinking about pardoning him, Cheney, and other individuals.
Schiff stated on Monday that he does not want Biden to establish a “precedent” by pardoning him and others in advance for their work on the House Jan. 6 committee.
Setting such a precedent would be incorrect. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Schiff stated, “I don’t want to see each president go out the door now issuing a broad category of pardons.”
Schiff said, “Well, and here I’m just speaking for myself, those of us that were on the Jan. 6 committee who [President-elect Trump] has put in the crosshairs, we’re all enormously proud of the work that we did,” in response to a question about the possibility of a more focused pardon.
“We maintain our position. We believe that the Speech and Debate Clause protects us. He continued, “So, I—my own feeling is, let’s just avoid this kind of broad precedent.”
Schiff said of Biden, “I’m urging that he not go down that road,” without going so far as to say he would “no” to such a pardon if it were offered.
WATCH:
Some Democrats have said that before Biden leaves office at the end of the month, he should pardon people who Trump and his administration might target.
“We’re back in this conundrum again, where a Democratic president can do things for a very good reason, a laudable reason, a legitimate reason — in this case, that people are being threatened improperly by an incoming president — but then that precedent can be abused,” Schiff said in his Monday CNN appearance.
