The Jan. 6th committee certainly caused a ruckus this time around. It may have Greg Abbot, Kristi Noem, and thousands of others guarding against identity theft for the rest of their lives.
The Washington Post reported that around 1,900 Social Security numbers were leaked by the committee in a spreadsheet, which wasn’t redacted fast enough for the public not to get a glance at it.
Hard to say it was an accident?
In fact, several other Trump committee members had their SSNs leaked despite not being involved in the protests on January 6th, including Ben Carson, who spoke up on the fiasco.
In doxing personal information, the January 6th committee is revealing itself to be a political sideshow stunt meant to damage and harass political opponents.
— Comhachag (@Comhachag34) January 6, 2023
The Housing and Urban Development secretary couldn’t confirm whether the leak happened due to sloppy handling of the documents or if it was intentional. He did add that either scenario would be a testament to how dysfunctional Washington is right now.
One of the committee’s aides claimed that the leak wasn’t planned to happen, but that’s hard to believe considering the motivation the committee had to publish the SSNs.
The data wasn’t even supposed to be in the records from the moment the committee got its hands on it; the fact that it wasn’t redacted from the final report only goes to show how incompetent they really are.
My lawyers have asked the @WhiteHouse, the @USNatArchives, and @BennieGThompson which of them is responsible for leaking the Social Security Numbers of me, my husband, my 3 kids, and my son-in-law.
What specific measures and remedies will be taken to protect our identities? pic.twitter.com/HWBu5ukWPP
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) January 6, 2023
Incompetence at its finest
While it’s impossible to point fingers at whoever was responsible for this, the development certainly has the aroma of retribution against Trump and his associates.
However, this would imply that those on the committee were competent enough to actually devise a plan like this, and that’s hard to believe considering their work up until now.
The amount of bias they’ve shown so far is partial evidence pointing to the leak being intentional, but without any conclusive evidence to confirm it, it’s all up to speculation at this point.
The National Archives cast a portion of the blame on the committee, claiming they did everything in their power to remove personally identifiable information; although they didn’t believe the committee would actually release documents containing any if it remained.
Will there be any legal ramifications for the Jan 6th committee making public nearly 2,000 Social Security numbers belonging to high-profile individuals who visited the White House in December 2020? I don't care what their excuse, this was no accident.
— Semper MAGA🇺🇸 (@1forEnglish1) January 6, 2023
Because of this irresponsible leak of crucial information, over 1900, people will have to live in fear of their identities being stolen,; this might last for years if not entire lifetimes for some.
The fact that a committee tasked with investigating such a pressing matter couldn’t be trusted with sensitive information is demoralizing, to say the least.
However, they’ve been ineffective in their work ever since the committee was put together, and this event may go down in history as the biggest ripple they’ve made.
Additionally, none of those whose SSNs were found in the leak were informed before or after. Kristi Noem, as well as her children and even two federal judges, will have to worry about thieves and scammers obtaining their information.
This article appeared in The Record Daily and has been published here with permission.
