The assembly committee plans to ask for telephone records of the investigation by Jan. 6, including from members of Congress

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Maintaining communication records is the first step in an investigative process that can lead to witness testimony. The notices are scheduled to come out immediately this week and will provide the first window into the types of information the committee plans to pursue.

The Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who serves as chairman of the Select Committee, said he expects to issue subpoenas by the end of August. Thompson also signed off on a broader investigative strategy that will serve as a guide for the panel’s work going forward, according to a source familiar with the planning document.

While it remains unclear which records of members the committee is interested in, several Republican lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, acknowledged speaking to former President Donald Trump by phone on Jan. 6.

Democrats also accused some of their GOP colleagues of contacting individuals who rushed to the U.S. Capitol before the attack.

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Thompson confirmed that the committee was willing to send letters to telecom companies but also indicated that they would be sent to social media companies, though he declined to name which ones.

“In terms of telecom companies, they’re the ones you pretty much know, the major networks, the social media platforms, these kinds of things,” Thompson told CNN on Monday.

“I can tell you we’re going to look at everything that will give us information about what happened on Jan. 6,” Thompson said. “We’ll review all the records at some point.”

The Mississippi Democrat said letters requesting to keep the records have not yet come out, but there is a wide range of people the Committee plans to contact.

“We have a complete list of people. I won’t tell you who they are. But there are many hundreds of people who make up the list of individuals we intend to contact,” he said.

Jordan, who said he spoke with former Trump on Jan. 6, told CNN on Monday that he had not contacted the committee to keep his records, but said he would comply.

“I have nothing to hide. I’ve said that, I have nothing to hide,” Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said, but then warned that if the committee took that step there could be political retaliation.

Much of the committee’s work so far is behind closed doors, and the exact scope of the investigation remains unclear but there are signs that it could balloon into a massive task.

The scope and perspective of the committee’s work is part of what led Republicans to revolt against the concept of an independent bipartisan commission, but the select committee is likely to be broader than the independent commission that Republicans blocked. in the spring.

The resolution empowering the Select Committee provides no specific limits on what can and cannot be investigated, leaving the Committee to impose its own outpost rails and a narrower focus.

Preliminary plans involve gathering massive data, documents and ultimately compelling testimony from a wide range of potential witnesses, including members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, and some of the hundreds of rioters charged with the attack on the Capitol that day

It also appears that the Committee may have unlimited resources. Although the group has not yet clarified how much it intends to spend, the flexible language that dictates its funding reflects the framework for the select committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi. That committee ended up spending nearly $ 7 million over two years. The committee began its work on July 27 with an emotional public hearing featuring testimony from four law enforcement front officers. No further public hearing is scheduled.

So far, committee officials have offered few details about the subpoena’s potential targets even the GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and other panel members were clear that investigators should “capture every piece of information that matters.” That likely includes sewing up a detailed understanding of what Trump and his closest allies were doing that day and leading the attack.

The Selection Committee also began meeting with relevant agencies at the personnel level, one of the sources familiar with the Committee’s investigation told CNN, another indication that the investigation may eventually start ramping up in the coming days. and weeks.

The panel expressed an interest in speaking with former DOJ officials linked to Trump’s efforts to push false voter fraud claims. CNN previously reported that it could request relevant White House call logs from the National Archives, which has legal custody of all presidential records since Trump was in office.

Earlier this month, Archives acknowledged to CNN that it had Trump weather logs and other potentially relevant notes from the previous administration. In March, the Archives received a letter from several committees in the House “requesting records related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 20, but it’s unclear if the White House call logs were considered part of the particular question.

However, the Archives noted that there is a process “by which Congress and the incumbent administration can request access to the records of previous administrations.”

The House committees that signed the letter in March are receiving documents on an ongoing basis from the Archives, according to two sources familiar with the process. Those documents, and other related material on Jan. 6, will be shared with the Select Committee which is currently the point of review on all matters related to the attack, the sources added.

This story was updated with more details Monday.

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