Jan. 6 Select Committee deleted more than 110 classified files on Capitol riots

A new investigation indicates that the erasure occurred days before the Republican Party assumed a majority in the House of Representatives.

Altercados producido el 6 de enero de 2021 en el Capitolio. — (ALEX EDELMAN / AFP)

Published by

Alejandro Baños

22 de enero, 2024

Topics:

January 6th

The House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack, which was dissolved on Jan. 3, 2023, altered the investigation of the riots that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The latest information indicates that the committee eliminated documents days before the Republican Party gained a majority in the last midterms.

According to a report from Fox News, a new investigation opened by the House Administration Committee's Oversight Subcommittee, which is investigating the actions of the now defunct select committee, revealed that 117 encrypted documents were deleted, which may have contained key material to clarify what happened at the Capitol.

At first, the Republican Party and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the Administration Committee's Oversight Subcommittee, urged the Select Committee on Jan. 6, which was led by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, to deliver the files, per House rules. Specifically, there were 4 terabytes worth of documents, but the new investigation only managed to access less than 3 terabytes.

Additionally, Loudermilk sent a letter to his rival Thompson reflecting on the absence of almost half of the files:

As you acknowledged in your July 7, 2023 letter, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee) did not archive all Committee records as required by House Rules. You wrote that you sent specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security but did not archive them with the Clerk of the House. [You] claimed that you turned over 4-terabytes of digital files, but the hard drives archived by the Select Committee with the Clerk of the House contain less than 3- terabytes of data.

The files contain a password

Subsequently, investigators from the Administration Committee's Oversight Subcommittee managed to recover those 117 encrypted files but found that they had a password. "We found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain," Loudermilk said, adding a request that they provide a list of access codes.

Loudermilk directed another request, this time to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, to deliver, by Jan. 24, "unedited and unredacted transcripts" of staff who testified before the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack.