Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has called for an investigation into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the once-Democrat-led January 6 Commission that investigated the events at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
While briefly speaking to CNN reporter Manu Raju, Jordan wasted little time saying the investigation was nothing more than a witch hunt aimed at going after then-candidate Donald Trump. He also said the Commission should investigate Pelosi and what she knows about what happened on Jan. 6, CNN noted.
Raju asked: “Mr. Jordan, what do you hope to accomplish on the Republican side of this investigation?”
“You know what this is about. This is about going after President Trump, you know. I mean, the Democrats, they don’t want to talk about anything else so they got to talk about this. They don’t want to talk about the crime that’s going on in every major urban area. They don’t want to talk about the crisis at the border. They don’t want to talk about the price — the fact that the price of everything has gone up, the price of eggs has went up, the price of milk has went up, the price of lumber has went up, the price of airline tickets is up, the price of used cars — everything has gone up. They don’t want to talk about all that so they’ve got to talk about how we’re going to go after President Trump for a third time,” Jordan responded.
However, Republicans seem to be struggling on how to proceed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican leading the investigation are unable to decide how to proceed with their investigation into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
According to three sources familiar with the negotiations, Johnson wants Republicans to narrow the scope of the previous January 6 committee’s investigation and cease looking into it, including former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney.
However, some White House officials support GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk’s preference for a more expansive mandate, as he has been appointed to lead the investigation. CNN previously reported that President Donald Trump told Johnson before his inauguration that he wanted this investigation to be a top priority.
According to the sources, Loudermilk’s new select subcommittee, which Johnson announced in January, has not yet begun its work in part because of the behind-the-scenes dispute that has stalled negotiations.
“I told former Speaker Kevin McCarthy that I would accept the challenge under two conditions: I would have the autonomy and resources necessary to effectively pursue the facts without political bias or outside influence, and I would have the authority to report whatever we find to the American people,” Loudermilk told CNN in a statement on Thursday. McCarthy asked me to lead House Republicans’ investigation into the Capitol’s security failures on January 6, 2021, and Pelosi’s Select Committee. This, in my opinion, is still necessary in order to effectively seek the truth.
Loudermilk focused on the previous January 6 committee and its output during the previous Congress. The House GOP report’s recommendation at the end was for the FBI to look into Cheney’s involvement in the Capitol attack investigation.
The sources also stated that the investigation’s tapered scope would prevent it from examining security readiness before the attack and future security measures for the US Capitol.
Last month, Loudermilk announced that Speaker Johnson promised him that his investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will be “formalized as a new committee.”
This is part of a larger plan by Republicans to keep going with several investigations they started in the last Congress, now that they control both houses of Congress and the White House.
Loudermilk said the new committee’s details are still being worked out, but one option is to make it so that Johnson has more say over who is put on the panel (called a “select committee”) and how it works.
Making a new committee to highlight Loudermilk’s work, which included a report suggesting that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney be charged by the FBI, keeps the Republican campaign to keep President Donald Trump from being held responsible for the violence on January 6 in the spotlight.
“It was so singularly focused that basically Trump created this entire problem,” Loudermilk said of the former January 6 select committee that Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney helped lead. “When in reality, it was a multitude of failures at different levels.”
Johnson has publicly stated that the new effort to investigate January 6 will be “fully funded.”
Former Wyoming Republican congresswoman and Jan. 6 Committee co-chair Liz Cheney and Dr. Anthony Fauci were among the limited list of pardon recipients, a gesture Biden’s aides say was intended to preempt acts of vengeance by Trump or his incoming administration.
However, legal experts were quick to point out that the pardons would not exempt either individual from having to testify under oath if subpoenaed.
A Virginia judge on Tuesday ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow state Democrats to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional maps was illegal, a decision that dealt a setback to efforts to reshape district boundaries ahead of the 2026 U.S. House elections.
Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. found that lawmakers failed to follow several procedural and constitutional requirements when advancing the amendment, including not meeting the required notice and publication deadlines and attempting to take up the measure during a legislative session not properly authorized for constitutional changes. As a result, he declared the amendment void.
The amendment, passed by both chambers of the Democrat-controlled Virginia General Assembly in January, would have put a mid-decade redistricting plan before voters that could have significantly increased Democratic representation in Congress. Opponents argued the process violated state law and constitutionally required procedures for amending the charter.
Supporters of the amendment said Republicans were seeking a favorable ruling by filing the lawsuit in a more conservative jurisdiction and vowed to continue fighting the decision. Both sides have indicated plans to appeal the judge’s ruling.
Virginians for Fair Elections, a campaign supporting the redistricting resolution, stated that an appeal is anticipated, the Washington Times reported.
“Republicans court-shopped for a ruling because litigation and misinformation are the only tools they have left,” campaign manager Keren Charles Dongo said. “We’re prepared for what comes next, and Virginians deserve both the right to vote and the chance to level the playing field.”
The ruling comes amid a broader, nationwide struggle over redistricting and mid-decade map changes in multiple states, with both parties using litigation and legislative strategies to influence the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a separate development, the Virginia Supreme Court has temporarily allowed a statewide referendum on an updated redistricting proposal to proceed in April while the legal battle over the measure continues, underscoring the ongoing uncertainty over how and when new maps will be adopted.
The court’s order reverses a lower-court decision that had previously blocked the plan on procedural grounds. By allowing the referendum to go forward, the high court has set the stage for voters to decide on whether to amend the state constitution to permit lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map.
Under the proposed plan, Democratic leaders say the new map could significantly increase their party’s share of Virginia’s 11 U.S. House seats, potentially flipping up to four Republican-held districts. Republicans have criticized the initiative as a partisan effort to undercut GOP representation and distort electoral outcomes.
The referendum is scheduled for April 21, and while the decision allows the vote to proceed, the broader legal challenge to the redistricting measure remains active. Opponents could continue to pursue appeals after the referendum.
The ruling underscores the intensifying national battle over congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections, where control of the U.S. House of Representatives is in close contention.
President Donald Trump in December celebrated the Indiana House’s redistricting vote and increased public pressure on several state senators to approve a new congressional map that could give Republicans two additional seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump called the updated map “much fairer” and “improved,” congratulating Republican leaders in the Indiana General Assembly for passing the proposal earlier in the day, The Hill reported.
“It was my Honor to win Indiana six times, including Primaries, in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and this new Map would give the incredible people of Indiana the opportunity to elect TWO additional Republicans in the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The Indiana Senate must now pass this Map, AS IS, and get it to Governor Mike Braun’s desk, ASAP, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the ‘Hoosier State,’ and across the Country,” he said.
However, a handful of Indiana Senate Republicans refused to support the measure and it failed to garner enough votes to pass in January.