By Noah Rothman
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
First, Republicans argued that an independent, bipartisan
investigation into the events of January 6 was inappropriate because it could
interfere with ongoing investigations conducted by law enforcement. Then, they claimed that the proposed independent commission’s
remit was too narrow; that it should be empowered to investigate all mass
violence, particularly the riots that engulfed almost every American city in
the summer of 2020.
When the plan for an independent commission failed in the
Senate, only to be replaced by a proposal for a Democrat-led House select
committee, Republicans insisted it was a partisan fishing expedition. Whatever
the commission found, the results would be tainted by the political
polarization that prevails in Washington. Republicans might have left it at
that, but they just couldn’t. Their latest effort to discredit the
investigation into January 6 is likely to have the precise opposite of its
intended effect.
One week ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of the
five Republican members that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recommended to
serve on that commission—Jim Banks and Jim Jordan. But not, she claimed,
because these two members supported efforts to reject the certification of
2020’s election results from a variety of closely contested states. To admit
that this was the rationale would be to indict the commission’s chair, Rep.
Benny Thompson; after all, he had joined 30 of his fellow Democrats in objecting to the
certification of Ohio’s election results in 2005. Instead, she justified her
actions by citing the threat these members posed to the “integrity of the investigation.” It was imprecise enough to
give Republicans a talking point in favor of their claim that the commission
was designed to be a partisan affair. But what McCarthy did with that talking
point was utterly ponderous.
“Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five
Republican nominees,” McCarthy
said, “Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead
pursue our own investigation of the facts.” Given Republican opposition to
every form in which a January 6 commission might have taken, it’s reasonable to
dismiss this statement of support for a GOP-led investigation into the events
of that day as a pique-fueled flourish. But in the days that followed, the
party’s more MAGA-leaning members in the lower chamber latched onto McCarthy’s
big idea.
“It is a fact that the U.S. Capitol Police raised
concerns [ahead of January 6],” Rep. Elise Stefanik recently asserted, “and rather
than provide them with the support and resources they deserved, [Nancy Pelosi]
prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety.” Stefanik’s
allegation continued: “The American people deserve to know the truth that Nancy
Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that
occurred on January 6.” She added that Pelosi merely objected to seating Banks
and Jordan on that commission to avoid an inquiry into her role in the riot
that targeted the Capitol.
Jordan subsequently lent credence to Stefanik’s claim.
“Why didn’t the United States Capitol—the people’s house—have an appropriate
security posture on that day?” he
asked. “Those are the people we need to hear from. That’s the information
and testimony we need to get.” He added that only “the Speaker’s office knows
what the security posture [was] and why it was the way it was.”
Given all these outstanding questions, it sure sounds
like we need an independent commission to investigate the events of January 6.
Regardless of the merits of the claim that Pelosi bears
responsibility for leaving the Capitol open to being ransacked by a pro-Trump
mob (a claim that contradicts what we know about security preparations ahead of the event
and misrepresents the Speaker’s authority over the
committees that oversee security on the Hill), that’s an allegation so
inflammatory that we should hope to see an investigation into the claim. That
is, unless ambiguity is what these members would actually prefer.
Though it seems a distant memory now, it was only three
months ago that Rep. Liz Cheney was ousted from her House leadership role
because the Republican Party could not “move forward” while she obsessed over the events of January
6. To judge from this new messaging campaign, Cheney’s harshest critics within
the Republican conference are now willing to concede that she was right;
there’s no moving on from the events of January 6 with so many outstanding
questions about the chain of events that led to the sacking of the Capitol
Building. In their effort to win the news cycle, whatever the cost, the MAGA
wing of the GOP in the House has just handed their critics a major victory. And
the hearings have only just begun.
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