House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said the new subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government wants to investigate the alleged mistreatment of Jan. 6, 2021, defendants during their detainment.
Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, said Monday during a radio interview with host Bob Frantz that numerous whistleblowers have come forward to talk to GOP lawmakers about the Justice Department’s “disparate treatment” of those who rioted during the summer of 2020 and those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
“The only concern would be that when you try to get someone who’s currently incarcerated to come testify, that can be an ordeal, but we will certainly look at that,” Mr. Jordan said, adding that the Jan. 6 defendants would also be subjected to “hours of questioning from the Democrats.”
“But this is something that we’re definitely going to look at,” he said, adding that there was also a double standard for those who protested outside of abortion clinics and those who “attack over 100 churches and crisis pregnancy centers.”
“So that is certainly a theme that we think is important to explore in the work of the subcommittee and frankly, the full committee,” Mr. Jordan said.
Two Republican lawmakers previously visited Jan. 6 defendants during their detainment at the D.C. Central Treatment Facility in November 2021.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and then-Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas described squalid conditions in the “Patriot” wing of the facility.
“It was like walking into a prisoner of war camp and seeing men [whose] eyes can’t believe someone had made it in to see them,” Ms. Greene said. “[There] was virtually no medical care, very poor food quality.”
Other lawmakers requested access to tour the detention center but were refused. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told The Washington Times at the time: “I think that would send an entirely wrong message to say that there’s something to hide at the D.C. Jail.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland this month said more than 950 defendants have been arrested in almost all 50 states and the District of Columbia in connection to the Capitol riot. That includes more than 284 defendants charged with resisting, assaulting or impeding law enforcement.