House Republicans used the first hearing of the new committee to investigate the Capitol attacks on Jan 6, 2021, to explore the Biden-era investigation into the pipe bombs left at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters the day before riots — and relitigate conspiracy theories and grievances.
It illustrated how Republicans plan to use their new select subcommittee and how far apart the two parties remain five years later in their accounts of the day a violent mob stormed the Capitol to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chair of the new GOP-led panel, questioned why it took nearly half a decade for law enforcement to identify a suspect in the pipe bombs case, when the Trump Justice Department apprehended the alleged perpetrator, Brian Cole, late last year.
“How is it that the Biden-Wray FBI was able to flawlessly execute a cellular dragnet to capture the information and eventually apprehend those trespassing at the Capitol, but failed to exercise the same investigative technique into the pipe bomber,” Loudermilk said, referring to President Joe Biden and his FBI chief, Christopher Wray.
“How is it that the [Democratic]-controlled select committee to investigate January 6th managed to write a final report in which they cover more than 700 pages and 8 chapters without ever mentioning the pipe bombs until an appendix in the back of the report?,” Loudermilk added.
Michael Romano, the former deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section called to testify by the Democrats, said the pipe bombs investigation was particularly difficult, given the “needle-in-a-haystack nature of the evidence.”
At one point, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) physically brandished a binder that appeared to be the report of the previous Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee in his hands, calling that panel’s work a “total sham.”
And Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) noted that Stewart Rhodes, a leader of the Oath Keepers, was in attendance for the hearing. Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy before he was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with other rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who also served on the Democratic-led Jan 6. panel, called Cole’s apprehension a “rare bright spot” in the last year of federal law under the Trump administration.
Still, Raskin maintained that Cole voted for Trump twice and believed the conspiracy championed by Trump and his allies that Biden unfairly won the 2020 election. He also questioned whether Trump’s sweeping pardons for the Capitol riotersincluded Cole.
“Nothing will ever whitewash the indelible facts of that day,” Raskin said.