Thompson says he hopes Jan 6. committee can complete work by ‘early spring’

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman on the select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said he hopes the panel can complete its work by “early spring” of next year.

Thompson’s target end date — which he revealed in a recent interview with Politico — would complete the panel’s probe before the midterm elections take place in November 2022.

Republicans have been concerned that Democrats will extend the committee’s work through 2022 to maximize the political influence of the panel’s work.

Thompson’s timeline, however, would take that possibility off the table.

The proposed independent commission to investigate the events of Jan. 6 — which Democrats initially pushed for but was stopped by staunch Republican opposition — would have been required to wrap up by the end of the year.

If Thompson’s timeline pans out, the Jan. 6 select committee will have a far shorter lifespan than the 9/11 commission and the House select committee looking into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi.

The 9/11 commission was formed in November 2002 and dissolved in August 2004, and the select committee on Benghazi was established in May 2014 and closed in December 2016.

The select committee probing the Jan. 6 riots held its first hearing in July, where four police officers delivered harrowing testimony of their experiencing defending the Capitol against the pro-Trump mob.

The panel earlier this month said it has received “thousands of pages of documents” from technology companies and others ahead of its deadline.

The committee had asked 15 technology and social media companies and eight executive branch agencies to provide documents by Sept. 9.

That disclosure came after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last month said Republicans “will not forget” if telecommunications companies turn over phone and email records to the House panel.

That statement led Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to issue an ethics complaint, which asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate McCarthy and argued that the congressman breached House rules by threatening to retaliate against companies that comply with the legal requests.

Most recently, the committee confirmed that it is reviewing the actions of Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and other Pentagon officials following new revelations regarding efforts taken during former President Trump’s final days in office which were included in the book “Peril,” written by veteran journalist Bob Woodward and Washington post Reporter Robert Costa.