Deep inside the final report from the the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th (2021) Attack on the United States Capitol is a spreadsheet of weaponized sensitive information, released to the world.
Nearly 2,000 Social Security numbers associated with visitors to the White House in December, 2020 were posted online by the committee. The numbers include at least three members of the Trump cabinet, Republican governors, and many Trump supporters. The information was first reported deep inside The Washington Post, which buried the story on Friday evening.
Some of the Social Security numbers released were South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, a federal district court judge, a federal appeals court judge, several people who testified before the Jan. 6 committee, and a lawyer who represented a witness before the committee, the Post reported.
The spreadsheet that contained the names has now been eliminated from the online report, but had been exposed and no-doubt downloaded by unknown entities for several days. Many of the Social Security numbers were redacted but about 1,900 of them were not, according to The Post.
The Government Publishing Office, the agency responsible for publishing the file, did not notify any of the individuals whose private information was released, the newspaper reported.
Gov. Noem took the matter to her attorneys, who sent a letter to the committee and the GPO, demanding answers for why her Social Security number and those of there entire family were published.
“Perhaps most troubling and outrageous is the fact that each of you had an opportunity, and an obligation, to prevent the wrongful disclosure,” her lawyers wrote. The letter, addressed to the White House General Counsel, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee, was copied to Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, and committee members Adam Schiff, Zoe Lofgren, Stephanie Murphy, Peter Aguilar, Plain Luria, Jamie Fashion, and Adam Kinzinger. It was also sent to the director of the U.S. Government Publishing Office and the Acting Archivist of the National Archives:
