The House is launching a new investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced last month that she would move to create a select committee to further investigate the violent attack. The committee was approved on Wednesday.
Pelosi should be commended for taking action after Republicans blocked an independent bipartisan commission to scrutinize the storming of the Capitol by a mob of former President Donald Trump’s loyalists who sought to disrupt Congress’s counting of electoral votes to formalize President Joe Biden’s victory.
“Jan. 6 was a day of darkness for our country,” Pelosi told reporters. “Our temple of democracy was attacked by insurrectionists. The gleeful desecration of the Capitol resulted in multiple deaths, physical harm to over 140 members of law enforcement and terror and trauma among staff, workers and members.”
Pelosi had maintained that she preferred that the Senate follow the House’s lead and approve a bill to form a bipartisan commission, modeled after the one that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“It is imperative that we seek the truth,” Pelosi said. “It is clear the Republicans are afraid of the truth.”
Pelosi is right.
A select committee could allow lawmakers to get to the truth. The committee would be able to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents that could reveal crucial facts.
Several investigations into the assault are already under way, but none have a mandate to look comprehensively at the event in a way similar to the fact-finding commissions that scrutinized the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Americans need to know the truth of what happened when a mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 after a rally where Trump spoke, urging supporters to reject the results of what he falsely claimed was a stolen election. The Justice Department’s investigation into the Capitol riot includes several defendants who claim they were merely following the orders of Trump.
What happened on Jan. 6 should be investigated similar to what occurred in 2014 when the Republican-controlled House created a select committee to investigate an attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, which achieved its desired result of damaging the presidential prospects of Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state.
Republican lawmakers have tried to downplay the attack in which seven people died during and after the rioting. Two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed, and a third officer, Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and later died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.
So much about that Jan. 6 riot remains unknown, including: Who put explosives outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties that drew the attention of law enforcement away from the Capitol as the crowd grew and became more violent; what was the level of coordination between extremist groups and the Trump supporters who planned the rally that preceded the attack; what was Trump doing as the mob overtook the Capitol; why did the National Guard take more than four hours to respond; and what changes can be undertaken to ensure such an attack never happens again?
The Jan. 6 select committee is necessary to investigate the root causes of the riot, including White supremacist ideologies and extremist groups, as well as security failures at the Capitol that allowed it to unfold.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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