Opinion
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump slammed “political operatives” on the January 6th select committee and called their investigation a “scam” following reports that the panel deleted over 100 encrypted files.
Sources close to the House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee investigation into security failures regarding the Capitol riot as well as the select committee’s “actions” in their investigation told Fox News that the panel was “required to turn over all documents” to the incoming Republican majority.
The new House committee, which is led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), discovered previously that they had only received about 2.5 terabytes of data despite January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) stating in a letter that his group turned over “4 terabytes” of data.
Loudermilk, according to the report, hired a digital forensics team to try and determine what data had not been handed over. The team discovered that “117 files were both deleted and encrypted” just days before the new GOP majority took over.
RELATED: Trump Accuses January 6th Committee of ‘Egregious Criminal Act’ After GOP Accuses Them of Destroying Documents
January 6th Committee Deleted Encrypted Files But…
While the January 6th committee raised suspicions by deleting encrypted files just days before Republicans could gain access to them, there is a bit of hope that the data can be recovered.
According to Fox, “the forensics team has recovered all 117 deleted and encrypted files.”
Loudermilk is now demanding passwords to the files, writing in a letter to Thompson that the Democrat “claimed” to have “turned over 4 terabytes of digital files” but “the hard drives archived by the Select Committee with the Clerk of the House contain less than 3- terabytes of data.”
“One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee,” Loudermilk wrote. “Further, we found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain.”
Loudermilk requested that Thompson provide “a list of passwords for all password-protected files created by the Select Committee.”
The report also indicates that the committee failed to turn over “unedited and unredacted transcripts” of witness testimony.
RELATED: Even Former Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone Embarrassed As MSNBC Host Starts Crying About January 6th
Trump Responds
Former President Donald Trump responded to the Fox News report, first sharing it on his Truth Social media platform and then leveling the January 6th select committee in his own comments.
“The whole Committee of Political Operatives, Thugs, and Misfits was a SCAM set up to injure and defeat your Favorite President, Donald J. Trump,” he contended.
“They’ve deleted and destroyed almost everything, because it exonerated me completely, and was very bad for Crazy Nancy Pelosi and other Fascists and Communists,” he added.
In another post, Trump lamented “political scams” that are “designed for High-Level Election Interference.”
Thompson told reporters in December of 2022, one month before the GOP took control of the House, that the information from the select committee would not only be preserved but also “made available to the public.”
And then, according to this report, they instead encrypted and deleted over 100 files. What are they trying to hide from the Republicans and the American people? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
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