Jan. 6 committee has a formal path to share investigative material with DOJ, its chair says

The Jan. 6 select committee has formalized a path to share witness transcripts and evidence with the Justice Department, its chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told POLITICO Thursday.

“We’ve put a template together for sharing information, sharing it with Justice. My understanding is, there’s general agreement on it,” Thompson said.

Agreement on evidence-sharing would mark a significant milestone as the DOJ inquiry into efforts by Donald Trump and others to overturn the 2020 election enters a more public-facing phase. Federal investigators have sought to access the congressional committee’s 1,000-plus witness interview transcripts since April, but the select panel has resisted as its probe continued to generate extraordinary new evidence and witness testimony.

Now, though, as DOJ delves even more deeply into the former president's inner circle and the select committee’s most significant round of public hearings has concluded, there appears to be greater urgency for prosecutors to obtain evidence the select committee has gathered.

In a wide-ranging interview, Thompson said the select committee is entering an intense period of closed-door work to handle “housekeeping” matters — such as how to handle the five GOP members of Congress the panel subpoenaed but who have refused to comply. He said the panel is still mulling decisions about whether to formally request testimony from Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

He also said he anticipates an August release of a National Guard-focused report detailing the security flaws that contributed to the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Thompson had previously floated the prospect of sharing evidence with DOJ “in camera” — which would require department investigators to visit the select committee offices and review transcripts without keeping them.

But Thompson said Thursday that the new template is unlikely to include in-camera review because it created unworkable complexities. Instead, he said, DOJ would have to provide details about the information it’s interested in and the select committee will supply it.

He added that DOJ is aware of the identities of the witnesses who have testified to the select panel and can use that knowledge to request specific transcripts of information. Thompson has previously suggested that the department had expressed a particular interest in evidence related to false electors that Trump deployed as part of a broader strategy to overturn the election results.

Thompson reiterated that the committee ultimately intends to make the bulk of its information public. “All this is produced for the most part by taxpayer dollars, at some point the whole world will have access to it,” he said.

He also expressed an awareness of some tricky calculus for DOJ once it begins obtaining select committee materials. Prosecutors are obligated by law to share evidence with defendants that may bear on their cases, a process known as discovery.

“There’s a concern — and I’m not a lawyer — if you give them something and there’s something in there that impacts a case they’re looking at, they have to let the other side know,” Thompson noted.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal judge overseeing the seditious conspiracy case against members of the Proud Boys has ordered DOJ to notify defendants once it begins receiving potentially relevant transcripts from the select committee. Uncertainty about the committee’s plans led prosecutors and defense attorneys to agree on delaying that landmark trial until December.

Thompson said the recent developments in DOJ’s probe — including the news that two key select committee witnesses, Pence aides Marc Short and Greg Jacob, testified to a grand jury this month — are “significant.”

“I guess they’re doing their job,” he said.

Josh Gerstein contributed reporting.