House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Tuesday predictably took a Trumpian approach to complaining about the Jan. 6 committee’s requests to 35 social media, email, and telecommunications firms to preserve records that it believes are relevant to its probe into the deadly Capitol insurrection.
In a statement issued Tuesday, McCarthy took aim at committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) by accusing them of efforts to run a Democratic-led “surveillance state.”
McCarthy threatened that if any companies comply with the committee’s requests to preserve records that could potentially provide more information related to the Jan. 6 attack, they would not only violate federal law, but that “a Republican majority will not forget.”
“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,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy’s statement comes a day after the Jan. 6 committee sent preservation requests to firms that include Yahoo! Mail, USCellular, 4Chan, and encrypted messaging app Signal.
It is unclear who the individual targets of the request are. The committee’s letters only outlined the categories of records sought, but not the relevant people or entities.
However, CNN reported that the panel is requesting documents related to Republican lawmakers. The panel reportedly seeks the phone records of Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Jody Hice (R-GA) and Scott Perry (R-PA).
According to CNN, McCarthy was omitted from its phone records requests, but more names could be added to the list of Republican lawmakers that the committee is seeking phone records from.
