Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, told Newsmax on Friday that House Republicans have an obligation to look deeper into the Democrat-led House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot because that committee was a "scam."
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chair of the House Administration Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight, said earlier this week he will be leading an investigation into the now-dissolved select committee. Recently released video footage by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., painted a different picture of what went on inside the Capitol that day than what the select committee portrayed.
"From the very beginning, this was a scam," Nunes told "The Chris Salcedo Show" with guest host Chris Higbie. Nunes was a representative for California's 22nd Congressional District when the committee was formed in 2021.
"So, the Republicans do have a responsibility to try to repair this kind of banana republic that we've become, and the only way you can do that is getting the truth out, shining the sunlight so that people can be held accountable for their misdeeds," he said.
Loudermilk has not indicated if there will be any hearings, but Nunes said it's possible members of the committee could be called to testify if there are.
It might be harder for Loudermilk to get sitting members of the House to testify — the select committee issued subpoenas for McCarthy, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., in 2022 but they refused to comply.
Four members of the nine-person committee are no longer in Congress: Democrats Stephanie Murphy of Florida and Elaine Luria of Virginia, and the committee's only two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
"Nancy Pelosi really has a lot to the answer for," Nunes said of the former House Speaker from California, who was not on the committee, "because she's the one that that ensured that there was no fencing put up, even though for every previous presidential inauguration, there's always been fencing put up around the Capitol in December."
"She's the one who didn't call the National Guard and we now know that she knew there was a serious security threat that morning. I knew that ,that morning because I was the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee."
According to a Justice Department report, approximately 420 people charged in the riot have received sentences ranging from home detention to incarceration.
"There are political prisoners, that's the problem here," Nunes said. "People are paying a price for protesting their government.
"[When] I was in Washington, people would protest all the time. I remember 20 or 30 people came into the Capitol under the dome and locked arms and they shut down the Capitol that day [in 2008].
"We couldn't even go and vote that day. Nothing happened to them. They weren't even busted. So, it's this two-tiered justice system here that's the problem."
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