A group of Republican would-be members of the Jan. 6 committee released the findings of their counterinvestigation into the Jan. 6 riots ahead of the select committee’s release of its own final report later this week.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) put forward five members to serve on the panel but withdrew them after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) balked at the inclusion of Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH).
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The GOP report focuses on how Capitol Police were unprepared for the 2021 riot that tried to halt Congress from certifying Joe Biden as winner of the 2020 presidential election. Along with Banks and Jordan, three other Republican lawmakers McCarthy offered up for the panel — Troy Nehls (R-TX), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), and Rodney Davis (R-IL) — place the blame for the situation getting out of hand on Democratic leaders for not shoring up security.
“When Speaker Pelosi made the unprecedented decision to reject Jim Banks and Jim Jordan from sitting on the January 6 Select Committee — we knew she intended to play politics instead of addressing the massive security failures that lead to that day,” the group said in a statement.
“We said then that we would investigate and get to the bottom of why the Capitol was left so unprepared that day, and what needs to be done to make sure our security apparatus is never left so unprepared again,” the group added. “Unsurprisingly, the Select Committee appears to have spent almost no time on this issue. We release the following report to answer these questions, and to lay groundwork for security reforms as we prepare to lead a safer and more secure Campus in the 118th Congress and beyond.”
The GOP report claimed Democrats, who had the majority in the House, were responsible for the security of the Capitol complex and that directions to the House sergeant-at-arms came solely from them without input from Republicans. It argued that security measures were compromised by politics and concerns over optics, leaving the Capitol Police unprepared for the riot.
The report opens, “Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021. The Democrat-led investigation in the House of Representatives, however, has disregarded those institutional failings that exposed the Capitol to violence that day.”
The Republican report focuses on testimony from anonymous U.S. Capitol Police and intelligence officers, as well as Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker, and Assistant Director of the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division Julie Farnam.
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The findings include evidence that an overhaul of the Capitol Police’s system for vetting intelligence was overhauled in the weeks before the riot. This was compounded by insufficient training and supplies for the police force, the Republicans argued, as well as direction from Democratic leaders apparently founded on politics and optics.
The Jan. 6 committee’s report focuses mostly on former President Donald Trump’s role in the riot, while its appendices walk through the police and other security forces’ lack of preparation and control over the riot.
