The House January 6 committee released the Social Security numbers of high-profile GOP lawmakers in one of the final acts of their 18-month investigation into the 2021 Capitol riot.
The panel released the final report of their inquest to prove if former President Donald Trump and his collaborators attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6.
The 845-page report included information from over 1,000 interviews, testimonies, emails, texts, and phone records that they made public during their last meeting on Dec. 19.
The documents also dangerously included a spreadsheet with almost 2,000 Social Security numbers of people that came to the White House in an official capacity during the last month of 2020.
According to The Washington Post, Republican governors and Trump administration cabinet members’ private personal data was amongst the “massive cache” of records the committee made public.
The social security numbers of Republican governors Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Greg Abbott from Texas, and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster, were all exposed to the world by the panel.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s identities were also put at risk by the disbanded committee.
“Whether it was a careless and sloppy handling of records or a deliberate disregard of decorum, either scenario is a perfunctory and callous display of government and a frightening reminder of the current state in Washington,” Carson said to the Post.
Gov. Noem posted a scathing letter on social media seeking answers, after the nine-digit numbers of her husband, three children, and son-in-law, were revealed due to a visit to Trump on Dec. 14, 2020.
“Prior to being published as exhibits, the law required that Protected Personal Information be redacted from the visitors logs, but that was not done,” her attorney’s stated.
They said it was “troubling and outrageous” that the information was publicly available for days before the error was noticed and removed from the website.
“Governor Noem and her family are now at a very high risk of identity theft and being personally compromised,” they accused.
“Anyone could have accessed their social security numbers and saved, disseminated, or sold the information.”
The letter pointed out that Noem and her family are “particularly susceptible” to her status as a high-profile elected official.
Noem’s attorney’s directed the blame at the White House, the National Archives, US Publishing Office, and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D), the Jan. 6 committee’s chair.
They gave them until Jan. 13 to respond to the formal notice that “The Privacy Act of 1974” was blatantly breached in the leak.
The letter also requests a “detailed” assessment of how the infringement of their privacy occurred, who is responsible for it, how they’re going to remedy the error, and measures that will be taken to protect Noem’s family.
President Biden called Jan. 6 rioters “sick insurrectionists” during a speech on the two-year anniversary of the event.
He spoke about the death of a Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans by a Nation of Islam Supporter the following April to emphasize his point.
“Three months after Jan. 6, while they were still cordoning off the Capitol because threats by these sick insurrectionists continued to be propagated on the Internet,” Biden remarked on Friday.
“Again, all America saw what happened when Officer Evans was killed defending a checkpoint you had to go through to get up the Capitol because of these God-awful, sick threats that continued to move forward.”
“And the whole world saw it,” he concluded. “It’s just hard to believe. It’s hard to believe that it happened here in America.”
The mother of Ashli Babbit, who was killed by Capitol Police while trying to enter the Speaker’s lobby during the riot, was arrested during a protest at the Capitol on Friday.
Capitol Police alleged that they told Micki Witthoeft, 58, to get off the road while she walking in the street with a group of demonstrates.
She was arrested and charged with a traffic violation, but released later the same day.