A newly established Republican subcommittee to investigate the attacks on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, is set to convene next month — five years after the violent breach of the building took place, and three years after the original January 6 committee completed its work.
That original committee investigated both the failures of security and the events that led up to the attack, ultimately determining that President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that he only lost the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden due to widespread fraud was the “central cause” of the event.
That original committee was led by Democrats. The new GOP-led committee, which was established through a House resolution in the fall, ostensibly seeks to examine parts of the attack that the first committee supposedly overlooked, namely the security failures. Critics of the new committee’s establishment, however, believe it is part of a broader GOP strategy to downplay Trump’s role in inciting the violence that occurred.
Committee chair Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) announced earlier in December that the new panel’s work would begin next month.
“We’re nailing down the date — I think it’s probably going to be around the third week [of January] or so,” Loudermilk said.
Loudermilk’s committee will have full subpoena authority to obtain records and information regarding the attack. In September, Loudermilk stated his goal is to “uncover all the facts, and implement reforms so this level of security failure never happens again.”
The committee is required to give a final report by the end of next year, and will be dissolved either 30 days after a report is filed, or on the last day of the current congressional term, which would be January 3, 2027.
Notably, Loudermilk, himself a staunch Trump supporter, was revealed by the original January 6 committee to have led eventual attackers on a tour of the Capitol grounds the day before the breach. Capitol Police remarked at the time that they did not “consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious,” though the committee still had questions they wanted answered, as one of the tour participants did encourage violent behavior that day.
Three Democrats will serve on the Loudermilk-led subcommittee, chosen by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries after the resolution was passed. Those lawmakers include Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Eric Swalwell (D-California), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida). The remaining five members of the committee, including Loudermilk, will be Republicans.
After appointing those lawmakers, Jeffries warned that Republicans were attempting to rewrite history.
“Donald Trump and House Republicans are now determined to whitewash that day that will always live in infamy,” Jeffries said at the time. “House Democrats will not let it happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
Although the newly formed Republican version of the January 6 committee is unlikely to discuss Trump’s role in the attack, his words undoubtedly inspired his loyalists to attack Congress, which was gathering that day to certify the outcome of the Electoral College, confirming Biden’s win in the fall of 2020.
Trump spent months after Election Day in November of that year blasting the outcome, claiming, without evidence, that widespread election fraud had affected the end result. Weeks before the Electoral College certification, Trump invited his followers to attend a rally outside the White House to oppose it, saying on social media that the rally would be a “wild time.”
On January 6, 2021, Trump gave an incendiary speech to his followers.
“We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved,” he said, telling his followers that they would “never take back our country with weakness.”
Trump also alleged, again without evidence, that the election was “stolen” from him by “radical left Democrats” and “the fake news media.” He then directed his loyalists to go up to the Capitol building to express their dismay in person, telling them he’d join them there, which he never did.
Dozens of Capitol Police officers were seriously injured in the attack that followed, and at least five officers died as a result of the attack.
For the past five years, Trump has remained unrepentant about his actions leading up to the attack, claiming immediately afterward, for example, that his words were “totally appropriate.” He later attempted to defend himself by citing a tweet in which he instructed attackers, during their violent breach of the building, to “stay peaceful.” However, evidence uncovered by the original January 6 committee found that Trump had initially opposed the inclusion of those words in his tweet, and had been convinced to add them by others in his circle.
Polling has consistently shown that Americans believe Trump was responsible for the attack. A Politico/Morning Consult poll in June 2022, for example, showed that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believed he was “very responsible” or “somewhat responsible” for the incident while a little over 3 in 10 held the opposite view. A poll in January 2025 showed deep opposition to Trump’s pardon of over 1,500 participants in the attack, with two-thirds of Americans saying they were against his decision to do so.
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