Georgia GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk left with assurances that his probe into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will be formally established as a new committee after he posed with House Speaker Mike Johnson for a photo to commemorate the beginning of the next Congress.
The action makes the Republican Party’s attempt to change the story of January 6 a recurring theme in its investigational agenda. Now that the GOP will control both chambers of Capitol Hill and the White House, it is part of a larger effort by Republicans to carry out a number of GOP-led investigations from the previous Congress.
Loudermilk told CNN that while the specifics of the new committee are still being worked out, one possibility is to design it so that Johnson has more authority over the selection of panel members and the course of the committee’s work.
The Republican attempts to shield President-elect Donald Trump from responsibility for the January 6 violence remain prominent, as evidenced by the creation of a new committee to highlight Loudermilk’s work, which included a report suggesting the FBI prosecute GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney.
Loudermilk described the previous January 6 select committee, which 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.”
Even so, Loudermilk acknowledged that mentioning January 6 in the title of the new panel might give the wrong impression.
It’s somewhat of a trigger for people, in one way. In another, it is even more restrictive because there are other security concerns besides January 6, Loudermilk told CNN.
Johnson has declared in public that the new investigation into January 6 will be “fully funded.”