Rep. Thomas Massie Points out a Glaring Omission in Jan. 6 Committee Report

The Jan. 6 Committee dropped their final report Thursday night, and it went largely unnoticed. This despite them putting off the release from the day before so as not to be overshadowed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress. But their failure was overshadowed by the House Republicans dropping their report first. The GOP report destroyed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s narrative that she wasn’t involved in the security. It pointed out how Pelosi’s staff was very involved in the security plan with House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and how requests for more security were ignored. The GOP report further detailed that the Capitol Police were underfunded, undertrained, and underequipped, which didn’t help.

Somehow the Democratic report failed to note Pelosi’s failures. Funny that. But there was also something else missing.

Even though the Jan. 6 Committee report runs more than 800 pages, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) noticed that there was at least one other big glaring omission.

January 6th committee to adjourn without fulfilling year old promise to release Epps transcript.

The one person on film telling people to go into the Capitol (multiple times) disappears from FBI list and is not even mentioned in the 845 page final report.https://t.co/ozUv7hJYxy

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 23, 2022

Massie said the Committee was adjourning without “fulfilling year old promise to release Epps transcript.” “The one person on film telling people to go into the Capitol (multiple times) disappears from FBI list and is not even mentioned in the 845 page final report,” Massie said.

Back in Jan. 2022, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MI) — the Chair of the Jan. 6 Committee — said that they would eventually release a transcript of the interview that they did with Ray Epps.

“We will” release the transcript of the interview with Epps, Jan. 6 Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told the Washington Examiner Thursday. “But you know, there’s a review process that goes with every deposition.”

“He has to have an opportunity to review it, say, ‘This is what I said,’” Thompson said. “At some point, it will be made available. I just can’t tell you when.”

Epps previously spoke to the committee “several weeks ago,” Thompson previously told the Washington Examiner. Epps’s lawyer John Blischak told Politico that the meeting was a precursor for Friday’s transcribed interview.

Epps, an Arizona resident, former Marine, and previously a member of the far-right Oath Keepers, was seen in videos encouraging people on Jan. 5 to go into the Capitol and was at the site of an early perimeter fence breach on Jan. 6. He was put on an FBI list of the most wanted Capitol rioters but was removed from the list without explanation. And Epps wasn’t being arrested.

Yet, whoops, guess what’s not in the report, according to Massie? That transcript of that interview with Epps. So Rep. Thompson, why is that left out? Three guesses. Perhaps Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) can tell us. He suggested claims that if you don’t testify and invoke the 5th Amendment, that “says a lot.” I guess that means leaving out the transcript that they promised to provide of that interview with Epps “says a lot,” by that logic.

What a surprise, the Democrats lied again and didn’t fulfill their commitment to turn over the transcript. Why did they leave that out? And that raises the question: If that is left out, what more was left out and what don’t they want us to know?

Let’s recall those questions that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked the FBI official.