Rep. Morgan Griffith, the veteran lawmaker from Virginia’s 9th Congressional District, has been appointed to a new select congressional committee that’s re-investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Griffith, R-Salem, was appointed Sept. 11 by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. The new committee also includes some of the loudest mouths in Congress, from both sides of the aisle.
This is the third bipartisan committee to investigate Jan. 6. Early this year, President Donald Trump urged Congress to renew the investigation.
The first, appointed in 2021 by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, probed the origins of Trump supporters’ unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol.
That occurred as Congress tried to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Griffith was one of the lawmakers evacuated from the Capitol as rioters carrying Trump flags stormed the building.
It looked like they were trying to overturn an election that then-incumbent Trump falsely insisted had been stolen from him at “Stop the Steal” rally that morning at the Ellipse.
The first committee was led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, served as vice-chair.
In December 2022, that panel unanimously recommended the Department of Justice prosecute Donald Trump for: obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and attempting to incite an insurrection.
But that never happened. And Cheney lost her seat in Congress to a Trump-endorsed Republican challenger, Harriet Hageman, in Wyoming’s 2022 GOP primary. (Cheney’s now a professor at the University of Virginia.)
The second committee was led by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga. He chairs the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Administration Committee. Griffith also served on that panel.
In December 2024, Loudermilk released the “Interim Report on the Failures and the Politicization of the January 6 Select Committee.”
The title alone indicates the second panel’s work was probably focused more on undermining the first Jan. 6 Committee’s findings, than probing the insurrection by Trump supporters.
The interim report, which was not unanimous, accused Cheney of collusion with a Jan. 6 Committee witness, former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson. And it recommended Cheney be investigated for “potential criminal witness tampering.” (That hasn’t happened, yet.)
Democrats on the House Administration Committee later published an online document that called the interim report a “sham” loaded with “dangerous lies.”
Friday, I reached out to Loudermilk’s spokesmen, Brandon Cockerham and Luke Ferrell. Neither responded to emailed questions about the new committee’s areas of inquiry, its schedule, or whether it has met.
And it’s still somewhat unclear whether the third committee will investigate the actual insurrection, or merely follow the second committee’s pattern and probe actions of the first committee. We shall see.
Although some Congress members might brag about an appointment to the third Jan. 6 committee, anyone who knows Griffith realizes that’s not his style.
Among the questions I posed Friday morning to his spokesman, Jackson Krug, was whether the congressman’s office issued any announcement of Griffith’s appointment. (I couldn’t find a relevant press release on his congressional website, or in general news inboxes here at the newspaper.)
Also, I asked Krug: “Does Congressman Griffith look forward to serving on the second re-investigation of Jan. 6?”
And, “What are the unanswered questions about Jan. 6 that Rep. Griffith wants answered?”
Krug didn’t respond. That’s typical.
One eyebrow-raising aspect of the subcommittee is its membership. There’s no shortage of outspoken Republicans and Democrats who have in recent years appeared frequently on television.
Loudermilk remains the chair, and including Griffith, the new committee has five Republicans.
One is Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas. In November, about a week after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Nehls gave a TV interview, during which he urged Americans pay maximum fealty to the president-elect, his goals and his mission.
“Whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word,” Nehls said. “If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. And that’s it.”
Another appointee is Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana first elected in 2016. Before that, the four-times-married Higgins was a controversial Louisiana police officer who resigned under pressure more than once.
In April 2024, on the “Implicit Bias” podcast, Higgins outlandishly claimed the Jan. 6 riots were inspired and encouraged by government agents who infiltrated pro-Trump groups months earlier, during the COVID 19 pandemic. Later, those same agents duped Trump supporters to riot in Washington Jan. 6, Higgins claimed.
The New York Times later published an article about that podcast, under the headline: “G.O.P Congressman’s Wild Claim: FBI Entrapped Jan. 6 Rioters.”
The fifth Republican appointee is Rep. Harriet Hageman, who defeated former Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming’s 2022 GOP primary. After Trump’s 2021 endorsement of Hageman, she declared Trump “the greatest president of my lifetime.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appointed three Democrats to the panel. Nobody would call any of them shrinking violets either. All of them are potent debaters who serve on the House Judiciary Committee.
One is Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., elected to Congress in 2022. He’s a lawyer who also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The second is Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas. She’s another lawyer elected to Congress in 2022. She also serves on the House Oversight Committee.
Crockett won her Houston-area district with 85% of the vote in 2024. That’s even stronger support than the 72% or so Griffith typically gets in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District.
The third is Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who started in Congress in 2013 and also serves on the Homeland Security Committee. Rep Jamie Raskin, D-Md., is serving in an advisory role.
I first heard about Griffith’s appointment to the new committee in a phone call from Andy Parker of Collinsville.
He’s the gun-control activist who ran for but didn’t win the Democratic nomination in the 5th Congressional District in 2022. Parker lives in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District. (Griffith, somewhat oddly, lives in the 6th).
“It’s almost as if they said, ‘Let’s put a committee together and make it a circus,” Parker told me. “We’ll put the craziest right-wing Republicans on there we can find.
“It’ll be like a (World Wrestling Entertainment) smackdown,” Parker added. “Let’s make it as much of a clown show as we possible can.”
Or perhaps it’ll be like the third House GOP re-investigation of Benghazi. Remember how they milked that cow?
Better get the popcorn ready. Things may soon get wild.
Dan Casey
(540) 981-3423
dan.casey@roanoke.com
@dancaseysblog
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