Written by Will Seykora
The house plans to vote this afternoon on the creation of a select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol. With Nancy Pelosi leading the charge it is expected to pass with no Republican votes. Pelosi calls this necessary because “There remains no prospect for additional votes from Republican Senators to create the National Commission to Investigate the January 6th Attack.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer from Maryland said he wants the members of the committee to “pursue the truth, not pretend that this was some visit by tourists from somewhere out in the country coming to Washington to say hi and see their government in action.” Hoyer continues by saying “It was exactly the opposite, it was a violent insurrection mob that tried to stop democracy from working.”
Republicans on the other hand see this committee taking a turn for the worse. Minority Whip Steve Scalise said “This select committee is likely to pursue a partisan agenda to politicize the January 6th attack instead of conducting a good faith investigative effort into the actions leading up to and the security failures of the 6th.”
While the earlier proposed special commission would have had to give a final report by the end of the year, this select committee would have no deadline. This leads to the possibility that instead of attempting to get to the bottom of what actually occurred on January 6th and hold anyone accountable, Democrats will allow this to drag into next year in an attempt to politicize the attack for votes.
John Katko, a Republican from New York who pushed for an external and bipartisan January 6th commission earlier in the year stated “The select committee proposed by Speaker Pelosi is literally the exact opposite of that. The select committee would have a skewed, 8 Democrat and 5 Republican panel of members, all 13 of whom would ultimately be picked by the Speaker herself.”
Regardless of who is at fault for January 6th, it cannot be overstated how Democrats have politicized the attack. After ignoring countless riots, deaths, and lost property over the past year as a result of the death of George Floyd, Democrats finally decided to speak out against violence when they realized they could easily target Republicans and place the blame on them.
