Hearing on Jan. 6 violence exposes partisan divisions
WASHINGTON — Republicans sought to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection during a rancorous congressional hearing Wednesday, painting the Trump supporters who attacked the building as mostly peaceful patriots and downplaying repeatedly the violence of the day.
Democrats, meanwhile, clashed with Donald Trump’s former Pentagon chief about the unprepared government response to a riot that began when hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election broke through police barriers, smashed windows and laid siege to the building.
The colliding lines of questioning, and a failure to settle on a universally agreed-upon set of facts, underscored the challenges Congress faces as it sets out to investigate the violence and government missteps. The House Oversight Committee hearing unfolded just after Republicans in the chamber voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post for rebuking Trump for his false claims of election fraud and his role in inciting the attack.
Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, testifying publicly for the first time about Jan. 6, defended their agencies’ responses to the chaos. But the hearing almost immediately devolved into partisan bickering about how that day unfolded, with at least one Republican brazenly stating there wasn’t an insurrection at all.
Democrats clashed with Miller over the hours-long gap between when National Guard support was first discussed and the time troops arrived. Rep. Ro Khanna of California told Miller he was dumfounded “we had someone like you in that role.” After Miller descried a statement from Rep. Stephen Lynch, the Massachusetts congressman, as “ridiculous,” Lynch replied that Miller himself was ridiculous.
“You were AWOL, Mr. Secretary,” said Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.
“That’s completely inaccurate,” Miller replied. “That’s completely inaccurate.”
In testimony aimed at rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to be deployed, Miller told the committee he was concerned before the insurrection that sending troops to the Capitol could fan fears of a military coup and cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings in 1970.
“No such thing was going to occur on my watch, but these concerns, and hysteria about them, nonetheless factored into my decisions regarding the appropriate and limited use of our armed forces to support civilian law enforcement during the Electoral College certification,” Miller said. “My obligation to the nation was to prevent a constitutional crisis.”
Miller said that though military involvement in domestic law enforcement should be a “last resort,” he regarded the speed at which the National Guard was dispatched as among the most expedient deployments in history. He said he stood by each decision he made that day.
He said that though he believed Trump had encouraged his supporters to protest the election results, he did not believe Trump’s rhetoric — which led to his impeachment — was the “unitary” factor in the riot. This drew complaints from Democrats, who said Miller appeared to be softening criticism of Trump that he voiced in earlier media interviews.
Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Senate of having incited the riot.
Miller denied that Trump had any involvement in the Defense Department’s response, saying the two of them did not speak that day. Democrats nonetheless honed in on Trump and his role in the riot.
Rosen in his testimony defended the Justice Department’s preparation and also said there was no evidence of widespread election fraud that could have caused the results to be voided. His former boss, William Barr, has said the same.