Republican members of Congress reportedly being targeted by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 riot are pushing back, accusing Democrats of trying to spy on them for political purposes and starting another “witch hunt” akin to the investigation that preceded former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
The select committee is preparing to ask telecommunications companies to preserve records from a group of Republican lawmakers and some members of Trump’s family who were involved in the “Stop the Steal” rally that took place outside the White House before the Capitol breach, according to a report from CNN.
This signals that committee requests or subpoenas for records of Congressional lawmakers could be on the way, setting up likely legal battles.
Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked from sitting on the Jan. 6 committee, recently called such a move “banana republic stuff,” accusing Democrats of “weaponizing Congress’s subpoena power to spy on their colleagues.”
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Last week, Banks sent a letter to the Democratic-controlled panel’s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, pushing against any collection of member records.
“This type of authoritarian undertaking has no place in the House of Representatives and the information you seek has no conceivable legislative purpose,” Banks said in the letter. “It is a desperate partisan act that would only further reveal the political nature of the Select Committee.”
Banks also sent the letter to AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Twitter, and Facebook, warning them “of their legal obligation not to hand over individuals’ private records unless the subject of the subpoena consents to information being shared or the company has a court order to turn over the records.”
Insistence on companies notifying the subjects of the subpoenas is a response to how the House Intelligence Committee obtained phone records of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others from AT&T. Giuliani said he was shocked that AT&T turned over the records. Companies are often barred from notifying targets of subpoenas that their information has been requested.
“We all watched what Democrats did to President Trump and people in his administration with their Russian collusion conspiracy theory throughout his entire first term. Illegal search and seizure. Destruction of the Fourth Amendment. This committee is following the same witch hunt playbook the Democrats used against President Trump,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the members reportedly on the list of lawmakers being targeted by the committee, told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
According to CNN, Republicans on the committee’s list of lawmakers to seek records from include Reps. Greene, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jody Hice of Georgia, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
“What a disgrace. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats will do anything to distract from their total incompetence in Afghanistan that led to the deaths of our brave troops. Thankfully the American people are smart enough to see right through this charade,” Boebert told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
Brooks said in a tweet Monday that the move is a “total waste of taxpayer money” and “Russian Collusion Hoax 2.0.”
A spokesperson for Boebert added that she has not received or been made aware of any request for her records.
So far, the riot panel has not issued any subpoenas. But last week, it formally sent sweeping records requests to agencies in the executive branch, seeking details on executive department contacts with a number of outside activists, and requested records from 15 social media companies about “misinformation,” efforts to overturn the election, “domestic violent extremism,” and foreign influence in the election occurring on their platforms.
Trump indicated in a statement that he will fight the request, saying “executive privilege will be defended” and calling it a “partisan exercise.”
“I did not help plan nor speak at the rally, nor did I even attend it. To my knowledge, neither I nor any of my staff have received any request for records from Speaker Pelosi’s highly-partisan myrmidons,” Gohmert said in a statement. “The current target of this particular political inquisition are some of the most vocal critics the House Majority’s Marxist leadership. I would have been hurt if Speaker Pelosi had left me off of her hit list. I have never encouraged an insurrection, and I continue to point out that Dr. King’s methods of peaceful but vocal protests are the most effective. And though I have nothing to hide, I do have a Constitutionally sworn obligation to use all legal avenues available to protect all lawful communications with my constituents without the bony finger of some totalitarian oligarch pointing at them.”
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Republicans are also attempting to put the blame for the Jan. 6 breach back on Pelosi.
“The fascist-led witch hunt committee is designed to deflect, distract, and disguise the real crime: Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to honor the request for National Guard troops to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Greene said of the California Democratic speaker. “Nancy Pelosi only cares about her legacy of turning America into a communist state. This witch hunt is being conducted for one reason, to take down her strongest political enemies in Congress.”
