After November 11, 2001, a bill to form a commission to investigate the attack on the U.S. government. Now, Democrats in the House and Senate want to pass a very similar bill to investigate the attack on the U.S. government on January 6, 2021, the day when a group of American citizens stormed the Capitol Building, beat Capitol Police officers with flag poles and sprayed them with mace and bear spray to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Republicans have opposed it.
Romney to me & @JulieNBCNews: “I'll look at the legislation and decide whether it's adequate and truly bipartisan. But I do support the object of the commission, which is to look into the things we can learn from what happened on January 6.” pic.twitter.com/YMkJbZ31nr
— Alan He (@alanhe) May 19, 2021
The GOP has not only tried to insist the bill, created by a bipartisan group in the House, is a partisan effort, they’ve tried to gaslight the public, saying there was no insurrection and that the attack was just like any other tourist visit. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has referred to the bill as “shortsighted,” “duplicative” and “potentially counterproductive.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it “House Democrats’ slanted and unbalanced proposal.” They didn’t say the same about the same bill when they passed it in 2001 and the House Homeland Security Committee, including Rep. John Katko (R-NY), deputized by McCarthy to negotiate an agreement on the bill, has reached an agreement on it.
On Monday, Axios reported that:
‘Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters Monday he “would support” a House-passed bill to create a commission to investigate the deadly Capitol riots…Romney is the first Republican senator to publicly support the bill to set up a bipartisan 9/11-style commission looking into the Jan. 6 insurrection.’
Mitt Romney, who had expressed some reservations of the Jan. 6 commission bill, just told me he would be a YES if the bill came forward for a vote.
“I would support the bill.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 24, 2021
Opposition to the commission hasn’t specified any particular parts of the bill they find partisan other than that it will be an investigation of Trump’s supporters. Their first response was to rely on “whataboutism” and demand that the Black Lives Matter movement and Antifa be investigated, as well.
According to The Washington Post:
‘It was a somewhat odd demand for a few reasons. First, those weren’t attacks on the seat of federal government. Second, the scale of the violence was much smaller on a per capita basis, and it had occurred many months in the past. And third, unlike the Capitol riot, it wasn’t based upon demonstrably false claims pushed by politicians, including the president of the United States.’
Romney says he still supports the concept of bipartisan Jan. 6 commission but needs to study House’s specific proposal more closely before he can say he’d vote for it.
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 19, 2021
Republicans are opposed to the commission for one reason: they know the people who were part of the insurrection as well as the conspiracy theorists across the country who support them are their voters only because they are Trump’s voters. Defy Trump, or his rabid band of followers, and the GOP risks losing their seats in 2022.
‘It’s bad because it would necessarily point the finger (to some degree) at Donald Trump, the former Republican president — at whom even many top Republicans previously pointed the finger.’
Politico: GOPers who called for a commission, but voted no:
James Comer
Jim Banks
Ashely Hinson
Tedd Budd
Michael McCaul
Doug Lamalfa
Michelle Steel
August Pfluger
Kat Cammack
Jake LaTurner
Ralph Norman
Jeff Van Drew
Diana Harshbarger
Beth Van Duyne
Clay Higgins
Jackie Walorski— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 20, 2021
