The congressional committee spearheading an inquiry into January’s Capitol riot has asked 35 technology firms and 15 social media companies to preserve the phone and document records of 11 far-right members of Congress—and Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy (CA) isn’t happy about it. On Tuesday, the House minority leader took to Twitter to threaten companies who might be tempted to cooperate. “If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,” he wrote, failing to cite which law he meant.
McCarthy’s protestations were “typical of somebody who may or may not have been involved in Jan. 6,” the chairman of the committee told The New York Times in an interview, “and doesn’t want that information to become public.” The panel has not yet asked to preserve McCarthy’s records. But the unholy conglomerate of Republicans whose records the committee is interested in reviewing does include some of the usual marquee names: Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Scott Perry (R-PA), among others. These members of Congress, chummy Trump confidantes, were all involved in some way in the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the riot, whether attending, organizing, or promoting it.
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