GOP-led Jan. 6 committee sets first hearing for next week

The new Republican-led panel tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack will hold its first hearing next week, Rep. Barry Loudermilk said in an interview Tuesday — the five-year anniversary of the event.

The Georgia Republican, who is the chair of the select subcommittee, said his panel was still ironing out its list of witnesses, but he anticipated the focus would be the pipe bombs left at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters the day before the riots at the Capitol.

“It’s gonna be sometime next week,” Loudermilk said. “We’re gonna be really looking at the pipe bomb and the FBI’s investigation — previous investigation. Why did it take five years?”

News of the hearing that would look at the events of that day through the lens of security failures rather than attempts by President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 election was the culmination of a daylong campaign from Republicans to offer an alternative memory of the Capitol attack.

The White House published a website offering a largely false narrative of what unfolded at the Capitol five years ago — one that blamed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forcefully denied Trump’s role in inciting the violence. Democrats and Republicans also fought over the fate of a commemorative plaque mandated by Congress to honor those who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6, with Speaker Mike Johnson maintaining the project was untenable.

Loudermilk said he had not spoken to Johnson about the memorial tablet and hasn’t been following the controversy around it but suggested he wasn’t opposed to its display — something of a break with House GOP leadership have sought to either bury the matter or denigrate the effort.

“I don’t have problem putting it up. I think you need to honor the police,” he said. “I mean, the rank and file police, they were just trying to do their job.”