The daily beast

35 Republicans challenge Trump and GOP leaders to push probe for rioting on Capitol Hill

Alex Wong Despite objections from GOP leaders, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that would create a bipartisan, independent committee to review the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The House voted 252-175, with 35 Republicans joining all Democrats in favor of With 35 House Republicans voting for the committee, it’s possible that Democrats in the Senate could find enough Republicans there to back the panel, but the odds are long. While the number of GOP defections is a bit embarrassing for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his leadership team, it’s probably not quite the jailbreak Democrats needed to convince their supporters. Senate colleagues to go against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Democrats would need 10 Republicans to overcome a GOP filibuster for 60 votes in the Senate, otherwise the bill establishing the commission will not reach President Joe Biden’s office. “It’s a good performance,” Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) told The Daily Beast. “It should be everyone. But given Donald Trump’s grip on his party, I think that’s encouraging. The debate in the House on Wednesday was mostly one-sided. More Republicans voted in favor of the commission than those who voted against it. But the GOP’s arguments against the legislation were particularly far removed from reality. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) implored Democrats to start being bipartisan and to stop using “every tool like a partisan stick to beat Republicans”. “Look, things have changed a lot since the 9/11 commission,” Gohmert said, “because back then we haven’t had a problem on both sides – on either side of the aisle condemning the anti-Semitic comments. . His Texas Republican colleague Chip Roy argued that an independent commission was unnecessary because Congress already has committees that could subpoena people and investigate January. 6. “Let us use the powers that we have and the powers of this body and the committees that we have to seek the truth of information wherever it leads,” Roy said. The commission – like the one created by Congress after 9/11 – was an important step towards accountability and future security. Schiff used this example to justify the January 6 commission. He told the Daily Beast that Congress had done an important job investigating 9/11 but the commission had provided “enormous added value” because it was outside the political process and was blessed with personalities. of confidence. that come out of the commission will be widely accepted by the public, ”said Schiff. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) took particular offense at the GOP’s claim that the commission should expand its reach to all kinds of political violence, not just violence that takes place. is produced on January 6. “It is vital that Congress establish a bipartisan and independent commission to investigate January 6. Not on another date, ”Hoyer said. “It does not absolve any wrongdoing anywhere, at any time. But he says this unique insurgency is a danger to our democracy. Not to Republicans and Democrats. To our democracy. At our congress. In the House of the People and the US Senate, which was busy. Representative John Katko (R-NY) – the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee that negotiated the deal – also spoke in favor of the bill, saying that an independent commission “The American people and the Capitol Police deserve answers and action as soon as possible so that nothing like this ever happens again, “Katko said. All this drama to create a bipartisan commission comes after four months of negotiations and a wave of opposition recent from GOP leaders. After Katko finalized a deal with Homeland Security President Bennie Thompson (D-MS) last week to create the commission, McCarthy quickly blew it up on Tuesday. McConnell said later that day on Tuesday that he was undecided, he woke up on Wednesday and himself called the proposal “biased and unbalanced.” That had seemed to change, was that former President Donald Trump avai t released a statement Tuesday night calling the commission a “partisan injustice.” As McConnell and his Republican allies tried to find the reasons for this on Wednesday, their justifications did not appear.The bill the House passed on Wednesday would create an independent committee made up of 10 people from outside the government – five to choose by Democratic leaders and five to choose by Republican leaders. The committee would have subpoena power, but only if the Democratic chairman and GOP vice chairman agreed, or in the absence of that agreement, a majority of the committee approved. Republicans focused on Wednesday was the staffing mix, which also appeared to be a mostly imaginary complaint. The language for hiring staff was almost identical to that of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, as well as a January bill establishing an independent commission that had more than 30 GOP cosponsors. McConnell’s speech against the legislation Wednesday, senators who indecisive, or even supportive, changed their tune. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who said on Tuesday that the insurgency could not be “swept under any carpet,” said Wednesday he changed his mind after hearing directly from McCarthy. “The leadership in the House says it’s not bipartisan in nature,” Rounds said, even though the bill was the product of negotiations between Katko and Thompson – with McCarthy’s backing. After Trump, McCarthy and McConnell all spoke out against the commission, GOP leaders began to explicitly state a key concern that has spread for weeks: that such a commission would damage them politically. “A lot of our members, and I think a lot of Republicans in the House, want to move forward and not look back,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the Republican n ° 2 in the Senate. . “Anything that allows us to rehash the 2020 election, I think, is a day wasted in order to be able to contrast us with the very radical left-wing agenda of the Democrats.” The 10 Republican votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate, then, will now be much more difficult for Democrats to win. Even senators who would be the building blocks of any bipartisan vote, such as Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), have said they want to see changes in the commission as it is structured. the first use of legislative obstruction by the minority since Democrats took power in January. The symbolism of such a movement is not lost on Democrats. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told the Daily Beast that such a move would be in line with the GOP’s intention to filibuster voting rights legislation. “They are just interested in the blockade,” he said. Democrats on both sides of Capitol Hill say they will move forward, although the path to the commission’s creation is unclear. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday promised to put the House bill to a vote no matter what. And Hoyer told reporters Democrats would find a way for the review one way or another, even if it meant creating a special committee in the House. reviews of the Jan. 6 attack by congressional committees and various federal government agencies, saying their work would be more than enough to find out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. ), who chairs the House committee that oversees the Capitol Police, said Wednesday that would not be enough. “We’re trying to rule the country, so we’re trying to set that up,” Ryan said. “If there is something better, be part of it.” “If we can’t get Republican votes on this,” Ryan added, “that indicates what’s to come.” Learn more about The Daily Beast. your inbox every day. Register now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside delves deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.