A leading Republican hoping to replace the retiring Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who led an investigation of the House Jan. 6 Committee, ironically has an apparent social media history of criticizing President Donald Trump over the incident.

Dr. John Cowan is running for Congress in Georgia’s 11th District, hoping to succeed Loudermilk, who opted against seeking another term. The neurosurgeon's website makes no mention of Trump whatsoever, but campaign materials shared with Just the News have asserted that the district “needs a proven conservative who knows what it means to have a backbone and fight alongside President Trump.”

Recent reporting from Breitbart News, at the same time, highlighted that Cowan had financially supported the political efforts of former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a prominent anti-Trump Republican who served on the House Jan. 6 Committee. Cowan gave $2,500 in March 2021 to the Future First Leadership PAC, which Kinzinger controls.

Cowan called J6 "Trump's Rebellion"

The outlet also pointed to a number of alleged social media posts from Cowan’s now-deleted personal account in which he referred to the Jan. 6 incident as “Trump’s Rebellion” and later suggested that Trump drop the 2020 election fraud narrative, saying he sounded like a “drunk uncle.” The most recent post the outlet pointed to was dated to 2022 and Cowan does not appear to have made any public criticisms of Trump since that year.

While many Republicans criticized Trump over Jan. 6, Cowan’s past comments make his bid to succeed Loudermilk somewhat ironic. The Georgia Republican was the subject of intense scrutiny from the House Jan. 6 Committee over a tour he gave to constituents one day ahead of the event. He later led a panel that investigated the Committee itself and found a number of alleged improprieties in its operations.

Much of Loudermilk’s investigation centered on security shortcomings and failures of the Capitol Police to properly secure the building ahead of time. In February of this year, he told Just the News he suspected that Democrats had misused the organization’s intelligence against Republicans.

Democrats allegedly sought acces to Capitol Police database

“There's others who have spoken to us about efforts within the political element of Congress, within the Democrat Party, who were actively seeking access to the Capitol Police database and their intelligence, and they were using that intelligence against sitting members of Congress,” he said at the time.

He further said that “[t]here may be some evidence out there that this [FBI investigation] extended all the way into Congress, that there was investigation and political weaponization against members of Congress that may even have ties with the Select Committee on January 6.”

The Cowan campaign did not respond at press time to Just the News' request for comment.