Senate GOP lining up against House plan for bipartisan 9/11-style probe of Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Senate Republicans aligned with ex-President Donald Trump are working to derail a bill passed by the House on Wednesday that would set up a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to probe the deadly Jan. 6 mob siege and attack of the U.S. Capitol.
In a 252-175 vote, the House voted to establish a Jan. 6 commission consisting of 10 members — evenly appointed by Republicans and Democrats — who would have subpoena power and be tasked with investigating all facets of the Capitol riot to ensure something like it can never happen again.
But the bill will have to run a gauntlet of GOP opposition in the Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his opposition before the House vote, saying he’s confident the FBI and a couple of congressional committees already have the matter covered with their own investigations.
“The facts have come out, they’ll continue to come out,” the Kentucky Republican said.
The Senate’s 50 Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans to join them to pass the bill. No more than a handful of McConnell’s members are likely buck his opposition.
Still, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, vowed to force a vote on the commission bill.
“They are caving to Donald Trump and proving that the GOP is still drunk off the big lie,” Schumer said.
In the House, 35 mostly moderate Republicans, including upstate New York Rep. John Katko, who helped draft the bill, joined all 217 Democrats in voting for the measure.
“This is a fair and necessary legislation,” Katko said on the House floor before the vote. “I encourage all members, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put down their swords for once, just for once, and support this bill.”v
Katko’s plea largely fell on deaf ears in the House GOP caucus.
As evinced by the 175 no votes, House Republicans remain overwhelmingly loyal to Trump even though he continues to claim President Biden’s election was the product of voter fraud — the same lie that motivated a far-right mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an assault that left five people dead, including a police officer.
On the Senate side, McConnell’s stated intent to block the commission raised some eyebrows on Capitol Hill, as he has been a vocal critic of the ex-president since Jan. 6, explicitly saying he “provoked” the riot with his election “lies.”
But McConnell has other priorities on his mind, including his hope to reclaim control of the Senate in next year’s midterm elections, and a thorough examination of Jan. 6 could overshadow his political agenda.
Despite McConnell’s justification for resisting a commission, the one envisioned by the House bill would have a broader scope than any existing Jan. 6 inquiries.
It would investigate not just the security failures that paved the way for the riot and the crimes that were committed during it, but the role Trump and members of Congress played in instigating it as well as their actions while the assault was underway.
The commission, modeled after the congressional probe into the Sept. 11, 2001 airliner attacks against Washington and downtown Manhattan, would be required to submit a report on its findings by the end of this year.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would likely face a subpoena to testify before the commission, as he has refused to come clean about what Trump told him during a phone call on Jan. 6 as the siege was underway.
Questions also remain about why it took the Pentagon hours to deploy National Guard troops to the Capitol and why federal agencies didn’t better communicate with local law enforcement agencies in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 congressional certification of Biden’s election.
But McCarthy and a majority of his increasingly hard-right GOP caucus have embraced Trump’s claim that a commission shouldn’t be allowed to investigate Jan. 6 unless it also examines violence that erupted at some Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
“Republicans in the House and Senate should not approve the Democrat trap of the January 6 Commission,” Trump said in a statement this week.
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) grew visibly angry about his GOP colleagues’ refusal to clear the way for a deep-dive into what happened on Jan. 6.
“We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol Police with lead pipes across the head and we can’t get bipartisanship!” Ryan shouted on the floor. “We need two political parties that are both living in reality, and you ain’t one of ‘em!”
With Dave Goldiner and Michael McAuliff
