Bankston would only tell CNN that he was “cooperating with the committee.” The select committee declined to comment. During the trial, Bankston revealed that one of Jones’ lawyers had “messed up” and inadvertently sent him the two years of text messages. Bankston also said during the trial that the Jan. 6 committee had expressed interest in the material. Jones’ attorney Federico Antino Reynal asked the judge in the case to order Bankston to destroy the footage and not forward it to the House committee, but the judge refused. “I’m not standing between you and Congress,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Bankston when asked about sending Jones’ texts to the committee. “That’s not my job. I’m not going to do it.” The source did not provide details on the exact timeline of when Jones sent and received the texts in question. Jones was a center fielder on January 6. He was in a restricted area of the US Capitol that day, rousing the protesters, although he did not enter the building itself. He has rejected any suggestion that he was involved in planning violence and claims he tried to stop people on Capitol Hill from breaking the law. Jones testified before the committee on Jan. 6 earlier this year, but later said on his show that he repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent during in camera testimony. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who sits on the committee, told CNN Sunday that the committee is still waiting to see the texts and is interested in learning more about Jones’ role in the events on Capitol Hill. “Well, we know that his behavior motivated some of the behavior on Jan. 6, and we want to learn more about that,” Lofgren said. “We don’t know what we’ll find in the texts because we haven’t seen them. But we’ll see and learn more, I’m sure.” It was unclear whether the Justice Department had received the texts as of Monday afternoon. A Justice Department spokesman did not comment to CNN on Jones’ texts. CNN’s Sara Murray and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
