House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Thursday that House Democrats will form a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection that then-President Trump helped incite, following Senate Republicans’ deployment of the filibuster to kill the bill that would have created a bipartisan commission to do the same work.
“This morning, with great solemnity and sadness, I’m announcing that the House will be establishing a select committee on the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi told colleagues Wednesday she’d make a decision on whether to form the select committee this week.
During the announcement, Pelosi took aim at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), citing his reported remarks last month urging his Republican colleagues to do him a “personal favor” by voting against the Jan. 6 commission.
“A temple of our democracy was attacked by insurrectionists,” Pelosi said. “It is imperative that we seek the truth as to what happened.”
After stressing that Jan. 6 was “one of the darkest days” in the nation’s history, Pelosi said that the House select committee will investigate “the facts and the causes of the attack” and will recommend next steps on how to prevent similar attacks from happening again.
Pelosi added that she still prefers and holds out hope for an independent 9/11-style commission to probe Jan. 6, and that a select committee would be “complementary” to it.
The House speaker did not provide details about who will be on the select committee, saying that she will make an announcement on the matter. The committee will only need to pass through the House and will be staffed by members of Congress.
When asked about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) remarks panning the select committee as a “political” move, Pelosi said she is not worried about findings by the committee being dismissed, and that she hopes McCarthy will “appoint responsible people” to the committee.
Pelosi declined to say whether McCarthy will be called to testify by the select committee, saying that it’s up to the panel to make that call.
“I’m not going into what the committee will do. That’s up to the committee to make their determination,” Pelosi said. “But it is clear that the Republicans are afraid of the truth.”
The House speaker’s announcement comes almost six months after the breaching of the Capitol on the day of the joint session of Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Pelosi’s announcement also comes four weeks after Senate Republicans tanked the commission bill that would have established an independent and bipartisan 9/11-style panel investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Speaker Pelosi, who represents me in Congress, seems to be the only member of the House who gets things done from initiating impeachment proceedings to insulting the loser when no one else is able to and now this, the committee as imperfect as it may be, in order to probe the loser. I can get behind that.
This is absolutely necessary…there has to be a real investigation into what happened. It’s also going to be a mess, as the Republicans are almost guaranteed to appoint people like Jim Jordan to the committee simply to gum up the works. It is very likely they will run into the same buzzsaw that Gen. Milley unleashed on Matt Gaetz yesterday though, simply because there are a lot of people who are aghast at what happened and infuriated that Republican politicians are attempting to downplay it.
I hope they get subpoena power and use it to cut through the nonsense and get to the facts of what happened, as well as what drove it. That’s really the only way to make sure Americans get the truth of it all, hopefully in time for them to decide in 2022 if they want to allow the Republicans to continue to hold power when they were egging on the insurrectionists and continue to support them.
Go Nancy!
Not ideal, but if done credibly (i.e., the opposite of the GOP’s Cirque de Benghazi), it can keep the issues alive and add to what DOJ is doing with the insurrection perps. Also, no limitations on the duration and breadth of the investigation, and no need to negotiate with the pro-terrorist party.
Wonderful move, IF the Select Committee can somehow enforce the plethora of subpoenas needing to be issued.