August may traditionally be a slow month for developments on Capitol Hill, but the bipartisan congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack isn’t taking a summer break.
Last week, the panel examining the insurrectionist violence made a sweeping demand for records, sending letters to eight federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Justice Department. NBC News reported that the same request for documents targeted Donald Trump’s staffers, allies and even some family members.
Two days later, the committee took another big step as part of its comprehensive review. NBC News reported late last week:
The House select committee investigating the deadly invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6 said Friday that it is demanding a trove of records from 15 social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Google and a slew of pro-Trump platforms.
According to a written statement from the bipartisan panel, the records request, which seeks materials as far back as the spring of 2020, relates to “the spread of misinformation, efforts to overturn the 2020 election or prevent the certification of the results, domestic violent extremism, and foreign influence in the 2020 election.”
As was the case with the documents demand from earlier in the week, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippian who chairs the panel, set a two-week deadline for the tech giants to produce the materials.
This morning, CNN ran a related report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, adding that the select committee is also “set to request that a group of telecommunications companies preserve the phone records of a group of GOP members of Congress and former President Donald Trump, as well as members of the Trump family, who played some role in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that served as the prelude to the Capitol insurrection.”
The same report added that the list of congressional Republicans whose phone records are being sought includes Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ohio’s Jim Jordan, Arizona’s Andy Biggs, Arizona’s Paul Gosar, Alabama’s Mo Brooks, North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, Florida’s Matt Gaetz, Texas’ Louie Gohmert, Georgia’s Jody Hice and Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry.
Whether, when and to what extent the tech companies intend to cooperate with the investigation is not yet clear. That said, at least one prominent House Republican is urging the companies not to provide the committee with information.
Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana was tapped to serve on the bipartisan panel, before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the Republican lawmaker — in large part because the Hoosier refused to certify the election results in January, even after the pro-Trump riot. Last week, Banks told Fox News that House Republicans have a “duty” to punish every member of the committee as soon as the party reclaims a majority in the chamber. Among other things, the Indiana congressman said those investigating the Jan. 6 attack should not be allowed to serve on any congressional committee. By the end of the week, Banks told Thompson that the request for communications records was an “authoritarian” move. The Republican shared the letter with the general counsels of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. It’s a safe bet that the coming legal and political disputes won’t be resolved easily or quickly.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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