OPINION:
The Jan. 6 congressional committee was a lie. On Tuesday, the Committee on House Administration released a scathing report outlining evidence of witness tampering, document destruction and other misconduct GOP sleuths discovered since Democrats lost control of the lower chamber.
“These crimes must be fully investigated and individuals held responsible to maintain the trust of the American People in their government,” wrote Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the panel’s chairman.
The Republican investigators were particularly interested in the actions of then-Rep. Liz Cheney, who bucked party leadership to sit on the Democratic-run Jan. 6 panel. The erstwhile Wyoming Republican was rewarded with a hands-on role in the committee’s work.
Mr. Loudermilk produced encrypted Signal text messages revealing how Ms. Cheney elevated a junior White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, to star witness. The new report asserts that Ms. Cheney used a back channel to bypass Ms. Hutchinson’s lawyer and coordinate her incendiary claims — a violation of ethics rules.
After replacing her attorney with one suggested by Ms. Cheney, Ms. Hutchinson testified in televised hearings about secondhand and thirdhand accounts of Donald Trump’s actions as president, including the unproven claim that he attacked his own Secret Service detail and lunged for the presidential limousine’s steering wheel in a desperate attempt to reach the Capitol. This tall tale dominated the headlines for weeks.
The driver whose clavicle had supposedly been grabbed said this never happened, but he wasn’t invited to tell his side of the story. In fact, nobody bothered asking until five months after Ms. Hutchinson went public, suggesting the Jan. 6 committee was not interested in the truth. If it were, it would not have erased dozens of transcribed interviews, in violation of House rules mandating their preservation.
Perhaps the most significant omission in the Jan. 6 committee’s account of events was the Pentagon’s insubordination. On Jan. 3, 2021, Mr. Trump made clear he wanted military assets to defend the Capitol Building. “Hey, I don’t care if you use Guard, or soldiers, active-duty soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe,” he said, according to then-Gen. Mark Milley.
The commander in chief was assured a plan to do just that was in place, but acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller feared he might be criticized by “the Twitter sphere” if he carried out the directive. He told the Defense Department inspector general: “There was absolutely — there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. Military forces at the Capitol.”
Mr. Loudermilk’s report followed the orders sent down the chain of command to the eager D.C. National Guard troops who had to sit idle — less than 2 miles away. The soldiers arrived three hours too late. There’s video of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer being told the troops “are moving” to the Capitol when they were not allowed to do so.
Tuesday’s report shows the Jan. 6 committee’s one-sided endeavor intended to brand Mr. Trump as an insurrectionist to prevent him from holding public office again. It failed in that mission.
But the Jan. 6 committee’s misleading presentation of facts had a major impact on the 1,561 people arrested for trespassing at the Capitol. This includes a felony case filed Monday against a man who spent three minutes in the building and “touched” a police officer’s baton outside.
Learning more about what actually happened ought to make it easier for Mr. Trump to pardon those wrongly imprisoned over minor transgressions.
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