A former Democratic-led House special committee allegedly deleted password-protected files containing “sensitive information” on January 6, just days before Republicans took control of the House. fox news digital It was reported on Monday.
A former select committee led by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is investigating the events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, a person familiar with the situation told news outlets. He said he was asked to submit all documents he obtained to the new committee. Republican-led committee after 2022 midterm elections.
Mr. Thompson told House Administration Committee Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) that the committee would provide more than 4 terabytes of archived data, the people said. However, the new Republican committee reportedly received less than 3 terabytes.
Loudermilk's committee is investigating the Jan. 6 security failure and “actions” taken by the former committee. Loudermilk told Fox News Digital last week that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) plans to commit more resources to the investigation.
As part of the commission's investigation, a digital forensics team was hired to identify the information that had been removed, officials said. Sources told Fox News Digital that the Democratic-led committee had erased 117 encrypted files days before it was asked to turn over the data to the new committee. Sources said the discovery was made.
“As you acknowledged in your letter dated July 7, 2023, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol (Select Committee) is a member of the Special Committee as required by the rules of the House of Representatives. failed to archive meeting records,” Loudermilk wrote to Thompson. Obtained by Fox News Digital. “You wrote that you sent specific interviews and depositions to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, but did not archive them with the House Clerk.”
The forensic team was able to recover “numerous digital records from hard drives archived by the task force,” the letter said.
“One of the files recovered revealed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the task force,” Loudermilk continued.
He said many of the recovered files were password protected and therefore inaccessible to the panel. Loudermilk requested that Thompson provide “a list of passwords for all password-protected files created by the task force” so that the data could be properly archived.
Additionally, the Republican-led committee has reportedly not received testimony from former committee members about the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. In a separate letter to the White House general counsel, Mr. Loudermilk asked for “an unedited and unredacted transcript” by January 24.
“It is clear that Ms. Pelosi's task force went to great lengths to keep certain documents produced in its investigation from being seen by the American people,” Loudermilk said in a statement to Fox News Digital. It also appears that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney intended to sabotage our subcommittee by failing.” To preserve important information and videos, as required by House rules. ”
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