[L]ess than six weeks before the conclusion of the [January 6th] committee’s work, [Rep. Liz] Cheney’s influence over the committee’s final report has rankled many current and former committee staff. They are angered and disillusioned by Cheney’s push to focus the report primarily on former president Donald Trump, and have bristled at the committee morphing into what they have come to view as the vehicle for the outgoing Wyoming lawmaker’s political future
[...]
Some of the disaffected staff have left in recent months, in part out of frustration that their work is not expected to get significant attention in the report
[...]
Fifteen former and current staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, expressed concerns that important findings unrelated to Trump will not become available to the American public.
WaPo
So they should avail themselves of Washington's favorite passtime and leak.
Several committee staff members were floored earlier this month when they were told that a draft report would focus almost entirely on Trump and the work of the committee’s Gold Team, excluding reams of other investigative work.
Potentially left on the cutting room floor, or relegated to an appendix, were many revelations from the Blue Team — the group that dug into the law enforcement and intelligence community’s failure to assess the looming threat and prepare for the well-forecast attack on the Capitol. The proposed report would also cut back on much of the work of the Green Team, which looked at financing for the Jan. 6 attack, and the Purple Team, which examined militia groups and extremism.
[...]
A senior committee staffer told staff in a virtual conference meeting two weeks ago that none of the work done by people serving on teams other than the Gold Team that didn’t focus on Trump would be included in the final report.
“Everybody freaked out,” the staffer said.
[...]
“We all came from prestigious jobs, dropping what we were doing because we were told this would be an important fact-finding investigation that would inform the public,” said one former committee staffer. “But when [the committee] became a Cheney 2024 campaign, many of us became discouraged.”
I guess I didn't realize that's what it bacame.
However, [one] staffer said, while committee members disliked those chapters [from the other teams], they were open to including some of that material in a more concise or streamlined form.
“It’s not a class project — everyone doesn’t get a participation prize,” said a senior Democratic aide. “The Green Team has chapters and chapters of good work, but the problem is they’ve learned a lot of great stuff about objectionable but completely legal things.”
[...]
“Donald Trump is the first president in American history to attempt to overturn an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” [Cheney spokesman Jeremy ] Adler said. “So, damn right Liz is ‘prioritizing’ understanding what he did and how he did it and ensuring it never happens again.”
Also, the Committee has a Chair - Benny Thompson. Surely he has the power to direct the report as he sees fit.
People familiar with the committee’s work said Cheney has taken a far more hands-on role than Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), who is chairing the committee.
[...]
People familiar with the committee’s work said Cheney has taken a far more hands-on role than Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), who is chairing the committee.
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Two people familiar with the process argued that without Cheney’s guidance, the committee would not be on track to submit a cohesive final report by the end of the year.
[...]
Tim Mulvey, the select committee’s spokesman, said in a separate statement that the panel’s “historic, bipartisan fact-finding effort speaks for itself, and that won’t be changed by a handful of disgruntled staff who are uninformed about many parts of the committee’s ongoing work.”
“They’ve forgotten their duties as public servants and their cowardice is helping Donald Trump and others responsible for the violence of January 6th,” Mulvey’s statement continued. “All nine committee members continue to review materials and make contributions to the draft report, which will address every key aspect of the committee’s investigation. Decisions about the contents of the report ultimately rest with the committee’s bipartisan membership, not the staff.”
[...]
[L]awmakers on the committee are now reassessing what to include in the final draft and also eyeing different ways to publicly share more of the investigators’ work outside of the report. That could include sharing findings on the committee’s website or releasing internal transcripts.
[...]
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the panel, said over the weekend during an interview with “Face the Nation” that the public would have access to “all the evidence, for good or ill” within the next month.
[...]
“No member of the Committee has worked harder than Liz Cheney. Our bipartisan efforts have led to what some have called the most effective set of congressional hearings in modern history. The Committee intends to release the evidence we have acquired so no element of our work will go unreported.”
[...]
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and his staff are already preparing to conduct an examination of any evidence omitted from the final report that is more flattering or at least exculpatory about Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault, according to one Republican operative.
Of course they are.
That's what it seems like to me, too. Especially when some of the disgruntled staff were complaining they left good jobs to do this work.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
