Initial Report on Jan. 6 Riot ‘Just the Beginning,’ Chair Says

The chairman of a House Administration subcommittee on oversight says an “Initial Findings Report” on the Capitol riot over three years ago, released Monday, “is just the beginning.”

Since early 2023, Rep. Barry Loudermilk‘s subcommittee “has been investigating the failures at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, which House Democrats failed to do in the 117th Congress,” the new report says.

“For nearly two years, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th Select Committee promoted hearsay and cherry-picked information to promote its political goal—to legislatively prosecute former President Donald Trump,” Loudermilk, R-Ga., said in a written statement.

“It was no surprise that the select committee’s final report focused primarily on former President [Donald] Trump and his supporters, not the security failures and reforms needed to ensure the United States Capitol is safer today than in 2021,” the oversight subcommittee chairman said.

“The American people deserve the entire truth about what caused the violent breach at the United States Capitol of January 6, 2021,” the Georgia Republican said, adding:

It is unfortunate the select committee succumbed to their political inclinations and chased false narratives instead of providing the important work of a genuine investigation. In my committee’s investigation, it is my objective to uncover the facts about January 6, without political bias or spin. My report today is just the beginning.

A one-page summary of the report argues that House Democrats’ select committee on the Capitol riot “hired Hollywood producers to assist with their prime-time hearings” and “refused to adopt rules, allowing them to operate without limits, to project their predetermined narrative to the world.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s chairman and vice chairwoman, “failed to turn over video recordings of witness interviews and depositions, despite using these recordings in their high-profile, prime-time hearings,” the summary says.

Thompson said Monday in a statement posted on X that “Mr. Loudermilk’s latest attack on the select committee’s work is dishonest.”

“The select committee’s final report took into account the testimony of all witnesses, including the transcript that was released today (including at pp 127-128 and 585-592),” Thompson wrote. “All the evidence points to the same conclusion: Donald Trump wanted to join his violent mob as it marched on the Capitol, and he was irate when his security detail told him he couldn’t go.”