House committee investigating Jan. 6 Capitol riot to seek phone records of lawmakers

(Image credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

published 24 August 2021

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is preparing to send requests to telecommunications companies, asking that they preserve the phone records of several members of Congress, people familiar with the matter told CNN.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the committee, confirmed with CNN on Monday that letters will be sent to the "major networks" as well as "social media platforms, those kinds of things. I can tell you that we'll look at everything that will give us information on what happened on Jan. 6. We will look at all records at some point."

Thompson would not reveal the names of anyone the committee plans to contact, only saying it's "quite an exhaustive list of people." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have both said they spoke to former President Donald Trump by phone on Jan. 6, and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), while wearing body armor, delivered a speech to Trump supporters hours before the Capitol was breached.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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