Last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA02) – a member of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack – talked about the committee attempting “to obtain phone records from a former president from a former president’s family and from serving members of Congress.” See video excerpts, below, as well as a transcript (and see here for the full video, which requires an NBCUniversal Profile):
“Well Rachel, you know this committee is tasked with fully discovering and understanding the facts of everything that happened on January 6th and everything that led up to January 6, which obviously we know is an unprecedented attack on our democracy and our institution of government. So the committee is using these preservation requests to ensure that telecommunication companies preserve these records. This is a preliminary step, and you know there’s a lengthy list of people who are involved. And I won’t comment specifically on any of the names, but I would say that you know we’re taking a broad look, we’re casting a wide net to make sure that we understand all of the facts about what happened that day and have those records available as the investigation moves forward.
…It’s certainly possible [these requests could end up in legal fights in court], and I think the committee’s approach has been so far with these record requests and these preservation requests. We’re essentially sending out requests and providing a deadline in order for the telecom companies or government agencies…to comply with that timeline. And then we have more tools moving forward. There is the possibility of issuing subpoenas if necessary. But our hope would be, especially if it were to involve current or former members of the administration or government, that people willingly comply with these requests. But we do have tools available in order to enforce these requests, with subpoenas later on if necessary…
Also, Rep. Luria – a Navy veteran – had some thoughts on the end of the war in Afghanistan.
Rachel, you know I reflect back; I was in uniform myself on 9/11. It was actually a time when I was potentially coming to the end of my service – I’d finished my service commitment for being commissioned as an officer. And when I saw those tragic attacks um on our homeland, on the United States, on the Twin Towers – I was serving an aircraft carrier at the time – you know it was a moment when I knew that I needed to continue to serve, because what I was doing was important, my time in uniform was important, and defending our country was essential. So you know, from that point forward, I served for another 15 years and I think there’s so many people and I mourn the the tragic loss of the 13 Americans who died during the evacuation. And they put their lives on the line to continue to defend our country overseas and to understand that we have enemies overseas and they’re still there and they’re still seeking to harm us and to harm our allies. And you know, when I look back and I think about our 20 years in Afghanistan, the success of that was truly that we did prevent terrorists from gaining ground and planting a seed in Afghanistan from which they could launch attacks against our country. But now as we withdraw, I think it’s an incredibly tenuous time. We’ve seen even within the time frame of this evacuation, that there are terrorists there who are willing to harm us, who have already harmed, you know the loss of life of 13 Americans and others injured and many Afghans killed from this tragic terrorist attack within recent days. So it’s a very tenuous and dangerous time. And above and beyond that, we’ve left behind Americans, and we’ve left behind partners who served with us during those 20 years. We still have a mission at hand to make sure that we can rescue them, that we can bring them back, that we can bring them to safety. So this mission is not over until the mission is complete and we’ve brought every American home. We still have a mission at hand.”
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