The Chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol said on Sunday that the panel has spoken with former U.S. Attorney General William Barr.
The Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told CBS News’ Face the Nation that the committee had spoken to Barr and Department of Defense officials about reports that former President Donald Trump had been presented a draft of an executive order directing the defense secretary to seize voting machines in battleground states in December 2020. Said Thompson: “To be honest with you, we’ve had conversations with the former attorney general already. We have talked to Department of Defense individuals. We are concerned that our military was part of this big lie on promoting that the election was false. So, if you are using the military to potentially seize voting machines, even though it’s a discussion, the public needs to know, we’ve never had that before.”
Thompson also said on Sunday that the committee was “in the process of reviewing” 700 pages of Trump administration documents that were handed to the panel after the Supreme Court ruled to deny Trump’s request to block their release. He said: “We’ll see if that information leads us to additional individuals to make requests. But it’s so significant to our investigation to have the documents and executive privilege and other things obviously had no bearing and we’re just happy for the Supreme Court decision. We’ll look forward to reviewing it and based on the review, we’ll take next steps.” Thompson added the committee still expected to hold public hearings for its investigation in the spring: “We are reviewing thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of witnesses,” he said. “It’s taken a good bit of time for the committee to put together. And hearings at this point, we expect to be sometime in the spring.”
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