Lawmakers who previously served on the body investigating the January 6 protests at the United States Capitol appear to have deleted encrypted files involving the incident before Republicans took control of the House last year, according to a report from Fox News.

The former members of the House Select Committee on January 6 were required to turn documents over to Republicans after the midterm elections. Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democrat from Mississippi who formerly led the panel, had informed Representative Barry Loudermilk, the Republican from Georgia taking over the investigation, that he would turn over four terabytes of data. Loudermilk revealed to Fox News that he received roughly two terabytes, while a digital forensics team determined that 117 files were deleted and encrypted.

Some files were recovered by the digital forensics team, which determined that the documents were deleted days before Republicans assumed their slim majority, but the files require a password to access. Loudermilk sent a letter to Thompson requesting the passwords.

"One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee," Loudermilk wrote. “We found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain.”

The former House Select Committee on January 6, which was composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, was widely criticized for partisanship since the members were chosen by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California. The lawmakers ultimately suggested criminal charges for former President Donald Trump in their final report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, has promised to release surveillance footage from the protest. Participants in the events of January 6 have been the subject of extensive federal law enforcement investigations, while several hundred have been sentenced to prison or home detention for charges related to their participation.