Jan. 6 committee has received ‘thousands of pages of documents’ by deadline
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said it has received “thousands of pages of documents” from tech companies and others ahead of its deadline amid warnings from Republicans that such firms may face blowback.
In recent weeks the committee has issued a number of requests, asking 15 different tech and social media companies as well as eight different executive branch agencies to turn over documents by Sept. 9.
“With several hours to go before today’s deadline, the Select Committee has received thousands of pages of documents in response to our first set of requests and our investigative team is actively engaged to keep that flow of information going,” a spokesperson for the committee said in a statement.
The statement also indicated that the National Archives, which houses presidential records and has been asked to turn over a number of documents of former President Trump “has undertaken the process required by law for review of presidential records.”
It’s unclear how many of the entities facing requests for information chose to comply with them, and a spokesman for the committee did not immediately respond to a request to clarify.
But the notice that the committee has begun to receive documents comes amid the broader battle over a separate request made to 35 different communications giants and social media companies asking them to preserve a number of records and prepare to hand over the personal communications of a number of individuals — including lawmakers.
That request did not come with a specific deadline.
CNN reported Thursday that many companies asked to preserve the records are still weighing whether to comply with the request.
That follows a statement from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that the GOP “will not forget” which companies chose to comply with the request.
“If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law,” he said in a statement late last month.
The statement spurred an ethics complaint from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate McCarthy and argued he violated House rules by threatening to retaliate against companies that comply with legal requests.
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