Here's why this DHS official has no business on Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee: An 'alarming conflict of interest'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's select commit on the January 6 insurrection recently hired Joe Maher, a senior official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to investigate the security failures that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. But journalist Cameron Joseph, in an article published by Vice on August 12, explains why Pelosi's committee "probably should be bringing in" Maher as a "witness" rather than as an "investigator."

Hiring Maher, according to Joseph, is an "alarming conflict of interest" because he "was running one of the key offices that may have contributed to that failure."

Joseph reports, "Maher, a career official with almost two decades at DHS, became head of its Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the beginning of August during a rocky period for the office that is tasked with monitoring and warning about risks of domestic terrorism. Maher's conflict of interest was brought to light on Wednesday by whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid, who represents Maher's predecessor at DHS, Brian Murphy."

On August 11, Zaid tweeted:

Interviewed by the Beast, Zaid commented, "How in the world does the committee have credibility with him on the staff rather than in the witness chair?"

Joseph notes that Maher isn't the select committee's first "embarrassing" hire.

"Maher is the second staffer they've hired who's faced accusations of retaliating against government whistleblowers," Joseph explains. "An Inspector General report found committee staff director David Buckley, a Democratic hire, retaliated against a whistleblower, and some good-government groups have called for him to step down."

However, a spokesperson for Pelosi's committee, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, insists that the committee is taking steps to avoid conflicts of interest.

That source told Vice, "All members of the select committee staff are required to identify areas where a potential personal or organizational conflict of interest may exist, and staff leadership is taking affirmative steps to screen for such conflicts. Any staff member deemed or determined to have an actual conflict or the appearance of a conflict will disclose and recuse themselves from such matters."

Never Trump conservative and former DHS employee Olivia Troye was critical of Maher when she spoke to the Beast. Troye served as a counterterrorism adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, but she resigned in protest because of the Trump Administration's bungling with the COVID-19 pandemic — and Trump supporters were furious when she came out in support of now-President Joe Biden.

Troye, according to Joseph, "said that when Murphy was in charge of the office, she and the rest of top Trump Administration officials would regularly get intelligence reports on right-wing extremist and white supremacist groups. But she said 'all of that reporting stopped' once Maher took over — something she saw firsthand in the few weeks she remained in the Administration before quitting in late August."

Troye, who has described herself as a "John McCain Republican" and is often featured as a guest on MSNBC, told Vice, "Some of the warnings and some of the updates would have been there if people hadn't been gun-shy after what happened with Brian, and then Joe comes in and they're in a holding pattern — and there wasn't much production happening."