House Republicans may soon be able to review unredacted transcripts of witnesses who appeared before the Jan. 6 committee, with the White House offering to grant access to previously unseen testimony that the GOP has sought to get its hands on for months.
In a letter sent to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) on Thursday, White House special counsel Richard Sauber offered the Georgia Republican access to view the unredacted documents — but only under certain conditions. The offer comes after months of tense back-and-forth between the administration and Loudermilk, who leads the House Administration subcommittee investigating the work of the Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee since Republicans took over the House majority last year.
Those efforts have ramped up in recent days after Loudermilk threatened to subpoena the documents if they were not made available.
“We will make the unredacted transcripts available to you for review in camera, provided that you agree in writing to abide by the commitments made on a bipartisan basis by the Select Committee — to maintain the anonymity of the four witnesses consistent with the conditions under which the witnesses agreed to appear before the Select Committee, and to prevent the disclosure of ‘operational details and private information,’” Sauber wrote.
After its monthslong investigation into the Capitol riot, the Jan. 6 select committee released most of its findings online for the public to view. However, investigators withheld a handful of transcripts from interviews with select White House aides and Secret Service officials that were instead sent to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.
The withholding of those documents was part of an agreement brokered between the Jan. 6 committee and select witnesses in exchange for their testimony. The committee justified that agreement by noting the witnesses’ responsibilities pertaining to national security and “security protocols in and around the White House.”
Instead, the committee has access to redacted portions of those interviews, which the White House has made available to Loudermilk, according to Sauber’s letter.
However, Republicans have repeatedly accused the Jan. 6 committee of redacting key information that would contradict some of the panel’s findings. That rhetoric escalated even further last week when Loudermilk threatened to subpoena not only the documents but also the Jan. 6 witnesses themselves.
Loudermilk went so far as to accuse Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who chaired the now-dissolved Jan. 6 committee, of improperly archiving committee data — claiming some items were deleted or encrypted or went missing.
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Those accusations sparked a rebuke from Thompson, who accused his Republican colleague of attempting “to keep the January 6th conspiracy theories alive with your subcommittee’s misrepresentations and continued fishing expeditions, all in the service of your and Donald Trump‘s political interests.”
Should Loudermilk accept Sauber’s offer to view the unredacted documents, it would give House Republicans access to testimony and evidence that has previously gone unreported to them and the public at large. Loudermilk has not yet publicly responded to the offer. The Washington Examiner contacted his office for comment but has not yet received a response.