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As 2023 got underway, and the new Republican majority in the House got to work, among the earliest priorities for the party was a new, GOP-friendly investigation into the Jan. 6 attack. The endeavor would be led by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, in his capacity as the chair of the House Administration’s subcommittee on oversight, who faced some awkward questions about a controversial Capitol tour the day before the riot.
After launching his own Jan. 6 probe, among the Georgia Republican’s first steps was exonerating himself.
Nearly a year later, he’s apparently still at it. Fox News reported over the weekend:
The House investigation into “what really happened” on January 6, 2021, is entering a “new phase,” Fox News Digital has learned, with Rep. Barry Loudermilk leading the charge and vowing to bring “the truth” to the American people. Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee, told Fox News Digital that his investigation, which began under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is expanding with the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
According to Loudermilk, the House speaker has “basically tripled” the number of people working on the party’s new investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.
This, of course, is the same House speaker who told reporters last month that he’s releasing Jan. 6 security camera footage with blurred faces in order to shield potential criminals from legal accountability.
As for the idea that a partisan assessment of Jan. 6, overseen by far-right House Republicans, will let the public know “what really happened,” some skepticism is in order — in part because radical conspiracy theorists are not reliable sources of accurate information, and in part because we already know what really happened.
But just as notable is what, exactly, this “new phase” of the GOP investigation might entail. Loudermilk and his team issued this press statement last week:
Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) today sent a letter to former January 6 Select Committee’s star witness Cassidy Hutchinson, instructing her to preserve and produce all records and materials in her possession related to the events of January 6, 2021. As first reported by the Daily Caller, Chairman Loudermilk demanded Cassidy Hutchinson provide the Subcommittee with all documents, communications, electronic information, and metadata that is or could be related to her different testimonies regarding January 6 and the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol.
According to the GOP congressman, Hutchinson changed her story when cooperating with the real, bipartisan select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, and Loudermilk has “serious questions about these changes.”
This is, however, well-tread ground. We’ve known since 2022 that Hutchinson was originally represented by a lawyer paid for by Team Trump, which made her feel as if the former president was looking over her shoulder. According to Hutchinson’s version of events, her original lawyer told her, “[T]he less you remember, the better,” and made comments such as, “We know you’re loyal,” and, “We know you’re on Team Trump, we want to take care of you.”
She ultimately changed lawyers, at which point she revised her testimony with more forthcoming answers.
If Loudermilk and his growing investigatory team wants to bring Hutchinson’s experiences back into the spotlight, they're welcome to do so, but they might be disappointed if they’re counting on an election-year political victory.
Republicans have already tried to peddle an "alternate" report on the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, and it was an embarrassment. Its sequel is likely to be worse.