As the House Selected Committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol attack to collect the communications of members of Congress, one notorious GOP lawmaker who may be subpoenaed over his role in the deadly insurrection is gearing up for a fight.
Republican Rep. Jim Banks, of Indiana, raged at Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who told reporters this week that he plans to ask telecommunications companies to turn over the records of several hundred people, including lawmakers.
“Rifling through the call logs of your colleagues would depart from more than 230 years of Congressional oversight. This type of authoritarian undertaking has no place in the House of Representatives and the information you seek has no conceivable legislative purpose,” Banks wrote in a letter to Thompson that was also sent to the general counsels of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, according to The hill.
Banks called the push for records “a desperate partisan act that would only further reveal the political nature of the Select Committee.”
Don't Miss
Banks was at one point slated to serve on the very committee whose efforts he is now seeking to stall. His selection, along with that of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), was rejected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) due to “concern about statements made and actions taken by these members” ahead of the attack on the US Capitol.
Thompson on Monday wouldn’t provide specifics on whose records the panel planned to request.
“We have quite an exhaustive list of people. I won’t tell you who they are, but it’s several hundred people that make up the list of people we are planning to contact,” he said when asked if the list included family members of former President Trump.
The panel released a flurry of requests this week, though it has not yet publicly sought lawmakers’ direct communications.
A Wednesday letter to the National Archives, which stores presidential records, asked for all Trump administration communications with any lawmaker or their staff on Jan. 6.
