GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia revealed that House Speaker Mike Johnson promised him that his investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will be “formalized as a new committee.”
The announcement is part of a larger plan by Republicans to keep going with several investigations they started in the last Congress, now that they control both houses of Congress and the White House, the Washington Post reported.
Loudermilk said the new committee’s details are still being worked out, but one option is to give Johnson more say over who is on the panel (called a “select committee”) and how it works.
Making a new committee to highlight Loudermilk’s work, which included a report suggesting that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney be charged by the FBI, keeps the Republican campaign to keep President Donald Trump from being held responsible for the violence on January 6 in the spotlight.
“It was so singularly focused that basically Trump created this entire problem,” Loudermilk said of the former January 6 select committee that Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney helped lead. “When in reality, it was a multitude of failures at different levels.”
Johnson has publicly stated that the new effort to investigate 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,” CNN previously reported.
“Republicans re-issued subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and two Justice Department tax investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case on Monday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Those subpoenas would renew pursuits by the previous Congress that have been fought over in court – and not resolved – for months,” the outlet added.
Last week, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced the bureau is “closing in” on suspects connected to the planting of two pipe bombs near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021—an indication that the long-standing, four-year mystery may soon be resolved.
“The second we got in, I put a team on it and I said, ‘I want answers on this,’” Bongino told “Fox & Friends.” “And I’m pretty confident that we’re closing in on some suspects.”
Law enforcement discovered two pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic National Committees just as thousands of protesters began converging on the Capitol a few blocks away to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
Since then, some within President Donald Trump’s base have questioned the timing of the pipe bomb incident and the apparent security lapses surrounding it, speculating that the Biden administration has not been fully transparent with the public about the details of the case.
Video footage released by the FBI shows an unidentified individual placing the pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters more than 16 hours before law enforcement discovered them.
The suspect was seen wearing a gray hoodie, Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers, a face mask, glasses, and gloves. Shortly before the change in administration in January, the FBI revealed a minor detail: they estimated the suspect’s height to be approximately 5 feet 7 inches.
A Capitol Hill resident discovered the first pipe bomb while retrieving her laundry around 1 p.m. and alerted a nearby security guard after spotting the device in an alley behind the RNC headquarters, Fox reported.
Security footage captured the woman fleeing the area of the washer and dryer to notify a nearby guard, prompting an urgent search. That response ultimately led officers to uncover a second pipe bomb near the DNC headquarters.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general report that was published in 2024 revealed the two explosive devices were “viable” and “could have detonated, causing innocent bystanders to be seriously injured or killed.”