House Capitol riot committee issues sweeping records requests for communication between Trump and his children, top staffers, and right-wing media personalities
- The select committee probing January 6 is ramping up efforts to nail down Trump's communications.
- The committee issued sweeping requests to seven federal agencies including the National Archives.
- House investigators want to nail down who Trump talked to and when leading up to January 6.
The House select committee probing the January 6 insurrection is escalating its efforts to put together a picture of former President Donald Trump's communications with key allies and right-wing media personalities in the lead up to the Capitol riot.
The committee, chaired by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, on Wednesday issued sweeping public records requests to seven executive branch agencies, including the National Archives, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Office of the Director fo the National Intelligence.
The request to the National Archives firstly requests "documents and communications within the White House on January 6, 2021" related to the riots and the White House's response to them.
Those include all records involving Trump himself, his adult children Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former advisor Steve Bannon, and key staffers like chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and advisors Stephen Miller and Hope Hicks.
Taking a broader timeframe, the request also covers communications related to the 2020 election between Trump and right-wing activists and media personalities between April 2020, when Trump began ramping up his efforts to spread misinformation and conspiracies about the 2020 election, and the insurrection on January 6.
Those figures include Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Roger Stone, and right-wing activists and media figures including Amy Kremer, Ali Alexander, InfoWars' Alex Jones, Jack Posobiec, Greg Locke, and Scott Pressler.
The request "demands a wide range of White House records of the previous administration and encourages Archivist of the United States David Ferriero to use his authority under the Code of Federal Regulations to expedite the Select Committee's request," the committee said in a Wednesday statement.
The select committee held its first public hearing on July 27 with testimony from four law enforcement officers who responded to the attack. The group is continuing its work while both chambers of Congress are on recess from legislative business.
The ambitious nature of the committee's request, which Thompson said will be the first of many, will make for a lengthy investigation that will stretch for months and possibly into the 2022 midterms.
"I would say our goal is not to," Thompson told reporters of the prospect of the probe going into the next election cycle, according to Punchbowl News. "But a lot depends on the complexity of the information we collect."