January 6 congressional committee receives thousands of documents requested for probe

According to Reuters, the National Archives has also begun a pre-release review of documents relating to former President Donald Trump's White House as part of the committee's request.

"The Select Committee is also aware that the National Archives has undertaken the process required by law for review of presidential records," the committee spokesperson said in the statement.

The deadline for these agencies, as well as telecommunications agencies, to deliver the requested documents was September 9.

"With several hours to go before today's deadline, the Select Committee has received thousands of pages of documents in response to our first set of requests and our investigative team is actively engaged to keep that flow of information going," the spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement.

In August, the committee requested documents from the National Archives as well as government agencies including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice.

The committee also requested data from major social media companies like Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google to deliver messages relating to the events that transpired that day.

In response to requests from the committee for telecommunications companies to turn over phone records dated to January 6, Representative Jim Jordan called the request an "authoritarian undertaking."

"Rifling through the call logs of your colleagues would depart from more than 230 years of Congressional oversight. This type of authoritarian undertaking has no place in the House of Representatives and the information you seek has no conceivable legislative purpose," said Jordan.

"I have nothing to hide," Jordan said, but went on to say that "if they cross this line," Republicans will keep up their questioning as well.

Trump also criticized the extensive records request, which requested mental health records on the former president.

"Unfortunately, this partisan exercise is being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege," Trump said. "Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation."

Executive privilege allows the White House to refuse to comply with demands for records from Congress or from Freedom of Information Act requests, but the Biden White House has suggested that it will comply with the requests.