July 28 (UPI) — Lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol reached a deal Thursday to share more information with the Department of Justice.
The formal agreement ends months of back and forth between the committee and the DOJ, which first sent a broad request in May seeking transcripts of interviews with witnesses.
The committee, which cannot pursue criminal charges, at first balked at the catch-all request.
“We can’t give them full access to our product,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters then. “That would be premature at this point, because we haven’t completed our own work.”
But now, Thompson says there is a “formalized” process to share information with the DOJ, which continues to tighten its investigation on the attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
“We just got the process ostensibly in writing and agreed on,” Thompson told The Hill. “It’s not a catch-all. You know if they have some people you want to look at a transcript [for] you just need to let us know.”
The DOJ has prosecuted more than 800 people on charges related to the attack.
Thompson’s Jan. 6 committee has held eight public hearings on its investigation, with witnesses testifying in person and in videotaped interviews about the events of that day and leading up to it. The most recent hearing, held July 21, focused on Trump’s failure to try to stop the attack despite pleas from his staff and family.
The committee is expected to hold more public hearings in late August or September.
