Jan. 6 committee to ask phone companies for Republican lawmakers' records

Rebecca Shabad and Garrett Haake and Haley Talbot
·2 min read

WASHINGTON — The House select committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is preparing to ask telecommunications companies to preserve the phone records of a group of Republican lawmakers, multiple sources confirmed to NBC News on Monday.

The request was first reported by CNN, which said the committee is eyeing the records of Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert, of Colorado; Jim Jordan, of Ohio; Mo Brooks, of Alabama; Madison Cawthorn, of North Carolina; Matt Gaetz, of Florida; Louie Gohmert, of Texas; Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jody Hice, both of Georgia; Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania; and Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, both of Arizona.

The list of lawmakers is still evolving, sources said. The select committee declined to comment on the lawmakers, but a spokesman said later in the day that committee "sent letters to 35 private-sector entities, including telecommunications, email, and social media companies, instructing them to preserve records which may be relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation."

Among those companies were Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter. The committee also sent requests to websites and platforms that were heavily utilized by right-wing groups, including Gab, 4chan, 8kun, Parler, Discord and theDonald.win. The committee requested documents from many of the same companies last week involving 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."

"The Select Committee is at this point gathering facts, not alleging wrongdoing by any individual,” the spokesman said Monday.

Brooks tweeted about the report Monday saying that “socialists” and “Pelosi Republicans,” including Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who are members of the committee, are trying to seek his phone records.

He said, “Three results: 1 Total waste of taxpayer money. 2 Boredom for who looks at my records. 3 Russian Collusion Hoax 2.0. Why not subpoena Socialists who support BLM & ANTIFA?”

Last week, the select committee demanded attack-related records of federal officials and a number of Trump allies and staffers, including some of the former president’s family members.

In July, after the committee was formed, Cheney said that the panel could call Jordan as a material witness and could also subpoena House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and even former President Donald Trump.

The committee has so far held one hearing in which it heard from several police officers who were involved in responding to the January riot.