Chairman of Jan. 6 House Panel: Trump Records Will Be Released Publicly

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Alex Wong/Getty)

The House Jan. 6 select committee plans to release records from former President Donald Trump's White House, the panel's chairman said Thursday.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said potentially hundreds of pages of records will be made public, Bloomberg reported.

"As soon as we can go through them, and figure out what we can and can't — we will do it," Thompson said, according to Bloomberg.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejectedTrump's request to block the release of White House records sought by the partisan panel — comprised of Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans — investigating events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Thompson's comment about the records being made public reaffirms the belief that Democrats hope to keep the Jan. 6 events on voters' minds as long as possible before November's midterm elections.

One committee aide recently told Axios the panel was mulling prime-time, televised hearings on the incident in an attempt to "reach as many people as we can.” 

Thompson gave no timetable for the records' release, and added the panel was "anxiously awaiting" receipt of about 800 pages of material being turned over by the National Archives.

The White House records include visitor and call logs, emails, draft speeches, and handwritten notes.

Committee members have focused on Trump and his allies during their investigation, and have said Trump's records are key to their probe.

"That was one of the initial requests that we made as a committee, because that’s a storehouse for a lot of the information we need," Thompson said.

Trump allies facing subpoenas from the committee have maintained that the lack of GOP-appointed members is evidence the committee is not operating properly.

Before the Supreme Court's decision was announced Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan committee was expecting to receive four pages from the Department of Justice.

The DOJ told a federal appeals court earlier in the day that the documents to be given to the committee were not covered by a temporary injunction barring release of many other records.

The House Jan. 6 committee has not set a deadline for completing its investigation, but Thompson has said that the panel hopes to wrap up by early spring.