House select committee begins taking over January 6 investigation from other committee

By Ryan Nobles, Zachary Cohen and Whitney Wild, CNN

The newly formed House select committee is taking the lead on investigating January 6 going forward, consolidating the investigation, as other committees looking into the matter begin handing over their work, according to a multiple sources familiar with the matter.

That includes interviews with key figures related to that day that were already scheduled to meet with other committees but were postponed.

“The Select Committee will, as part of its ongoing comprehensive investigation mandated by House Resolution 503, conduct interviews related to January 6th and the events leading up to it. The Committee will announce additional actions and scheduling details at the appropriate time,” an aide to the select committee told CNN on background.

The move is not uncommon. Newly formed House select committees set up for a specific purpose often consolidate the work of established committees. A similar situation occurred during the Benghazi probe and in the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

According to multiple sources familiar with the process, all House committees are deferring to and sharing info with the new select committee on matters related to January 6.

One source with direct knowledge of the decision confirmed that among the interviews postponed in other committees were a series of meetings with former members of the Trump Justice Department scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee. Politico was the first to report of the decision for Oversight to hand the interviews off to the Select Committee. Among those coming for scheduled for interviews this week were former Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his former deputy Richard Donoghue, CNN reported previously.

The decision came abruptly, just a day after Oversight conducted an interview with another Justice official, Patrick Hovakimian. Hovakimian had written a draft resignation letter accusing the former president of using the Justice Department to advance election fraud claims, which he intended to release if Trump fired the attorney general.

In a statement to CNN, the House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, did not specifically confirm the decision to hand off her committee’s work to the select committee, but vowed to support the panel as they continue their efforts to get to the truth of what happened on that day.

“The Oversight Committee’s groundbreaking investigation revealed alarming new evidence that former President Trump instructed top leaders of the Justice Department to help him illegally overturn the 2020 election by advancing false claims of voter fraud — just days before he incited a deadly insurrection at the Capitol. Despite knowing that DOJ had found no evidence of any widespread fraud, President Trump demanded that DOJ declare the election corrupt,” she wrote. “As the Oversight Committee continues its crucial oversight work, we look forward to the Select Committee fully exposing the former president’s unconstitutional attacks on our democracy and attempts to stay in power after the American people voted him out of office.”

In a statement Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Maloney and her committee’s work, a sign that their efforts were completed.

“The Chairwoman’s persistent pursuit of the truth will contribute greatly to the work of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” Pelosi said.

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CNN’s Manu Raju and Evan Perez contributed to this report.