# Troy Nehls Republican U.S. Representative for Texas's 22nd district, the Houston suburbs of Fort Bend County (2021–2027), and a former county sheriff. His January 6 record runs both ways. He was in the House chamber helping Capitol Police barricade the door against rioters. He was one of [[Kevin McCarthy]]'s five picks for the select committee. Since 2025 he has sat on [[Barry Loudermilk]]'s subcommittee reinvestigating the attack, where he has gone after the police officers who testified. ## Background Born April 7, 1968, in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He spent 21 years in the Army Reserve (1988–2009), leaving as a civil-affairs major with two Bronze Stars. In March 2023 the Army rescinded his Combat Action Badge, which became public in May 2024. He was Fort Bend County sheriff from 2013 to 2021 and won the House seat in 2020. ## January 6, three ways - **2021-01-06** — In his first week in office, he helped Capitol Police barricade the House floor door and admonished rioters trying to get in. - **2021-07-19** — McCarthy named him to the select committee. Pelosi accepted him, but McCarthy withdrew all five after she rejected [[Jim Banks]] and [[Jim Jordan]]. - **2025-09 onward** — Speaker Johnson appointed him to the Judiciary select subcommittee chaired by Loudermilk. At its January 2026 pipe-bomb hearing, he described the officers' 2021 testimony to the select committee as scripted. NPR's fact-check called the "Trump haters" framing an oversimplification. At a January 22, 2026 hearing on [[Jack Smith]]'s investigations, he blamed the Capitol Police rather than Trump for the attack, and Officer Michael Fanone responded with profanity. ## Exit On November 29, 2025, he announced he would not seek re-election in 2026. His identical twin, Trever Nehls, a former Fort Bend constable and Army Reserve veteran, won the Republican nomination for the seat in the March 3, 2026 primary. ## KB significance Nehls is the clearest example of a January 6 story being rewritten by someone who was in the room. He helped defend the chamber, was offered a seat on the investigation, and is now part of the counter-investigation that questions the officers who testified, alongside the referral that has its star witness before a grand jury (see [[Cassidy Hutchinson News Log]]). ## Related - [[House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack]] - [[Barry Loudermilk]] · [[Cassidy Hutchinson News Log]] - [[Kevin McCarthy]] · [[Jim Banks]]