House Republicans are 'out for blood' and planning revenge against the Jan. 6 committee: report

A long list of House Republicans — from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio to House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik — deeply resent Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 select committee, which Stefanik has denounced as an “illegitimate partisan sham.” But that “sham” has presented a mountain of damning evidence against former President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, including former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshell testimony, on June 28, that Trump knew some of his supporters were armed on January 6, 2021 and wanted to march with them to the U.S. Capitol Building anyway.

Regardless of what else the committee’s hearings reveal, many House Republicans are angry that the committee exists in the first place. Journalists Alayna Treene and Jonathan Swan, in a report published by Axios on July 6, describe some ways in which House Republicans are hoping to take revenge against the January 6 committee if they regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms.

“Key House Republicans are threatening to subpoena records of the January 6 committee if the GOP retakes the majority next year — an escalation of the party's effort to undercut the investigation's findings,” Treene and Swan explain. “Why it matters: Fresh talk of 2023 subpoenas, following last week's vivid testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, means the committee's ‘final report,’ expected this fall, may be far from the last word on the Capitol attack.”

READ MORE: Texas GOP Lieutenant Governor: 'We are being invaded' by immigrants 'just like Pearl Harbor'

McCarthy and Jordan, the Axios reporters note, “have been threatening unspecified subpoenas in retaliation.” And Rep. Rodney Jones of Illinois, on June 9, promised to make a “full investigation” of the committee a top priority in 2023 if Republicans retake the House in November. But Jones lost a GOP congressional primary to Trump-backed candidate, Rep. Mary Miller.

Interviewed on condition of anonymity, a Republican source described by Treene and Swan as a “senior GOP staffer on the House Administration Committee” told Axios, “When Republicans retake the majority, we will exercise our oversight responsibilities, including subpoena authority to review all transcripts and information that the committee has access to in order to identify the truth.”

Axios also interviewed an anonymous House Republican aide, who told the publication, “The base is out for blood on subpoenas. A lot of it will just depend on how far McCarthy wants to go.”