House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.) has sharply criticized the select committee on January 6—a panel originally formed by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi—for allegedly deleting or password-protecting nearly two terabytes of data just days before Republicans assumed control of the House last year.
According to recent reports by the New York Post, the House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee, which is tasked with investigating the 2021 Capitol attack as well as a previous Democrat-led inquiry into the riot, discovered that over 100 files were encrypted or removed from hard drives during the chamber’s transition to GOP control in January 2023. The select committee was expected to deliver four terabytes of archived records to Republican Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R–Ga.), but it appears that only two terabytes of data were provided.
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Stefanik lambasted the committee—of which former Representative Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.) was a member—stating:
“As I said from day one, Nancy Pelosi’s sham January 6th Committee was illegitimate and unconstitutional. It should come as no surprise that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney’s fake committee illegally deleted records of their sham investigation and obstructed justice. The American people deserve full transparency.”
Cheney responded by linking to an earlier statement Stefanik made on the day of the Capitol riot, suggesting that “this is what @EliseStefanik said, in a rare moment of honesty, about the January 6 attack on our Capitol.” Cheney went on to remark, “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.”
In her earlier statement on the day of the riot, Stefanik had described the events as “a truly tragic day for America.” A staunch advocate of former President Donald Trump and a potential vice presidential candidate for the leading GOP contender, Stefanik succeeded Cheney as conference chairwoman after Cheney was removed from the post for her vote to impeach Trump—a vote rooted in the claim that he provoked the riots by imploring his supporters to “demonstrate peacefully” at the Capitol.