GOP pushes back on Pelosi proposal for riot commission
WASHINGTON— Republican leaders in t he House and Senate say a proposed plan for an independent commission to study the Capitol insurrection is overly tilted toward Democrats, arguing that the panel should have an even party split like the one formed to study the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that a legitimate commission would be comprised of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. A draft proposed by House Speaker Nancy P el o si would create an 11- member commission with f our Republicans and seven Democrats, three of whom would be chosen by President Joe Biden, according to one of multiple aides who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details under negotiation.
Pelosi has not commented on the draft or said why there should be more Democratic members. Last week, she said the commission must be “strongly bi partisan” and have the power to subpoena witnesses. But on Wednesday, House Democratic Conference Chair HakeemJef fri es said McCarthy hasn' t operated in good faith and“set a bad tone” when he supported former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn Biden's legitimate election victory.
The partisan bickering before the commission gets off the ground is raising questions about whether lawmakers can coalesce around a thorough review of the Jan. 6 riot that interrupted the presidential electoral count and led to five deaths. Both parties support creating an independent investigation, but much of the consensus ends t here, with Democrats demanding accountability for lawmakers who amplified Trump's falsehoods about the election.
The vast majority of Republicans stood by Trump as Democrats impeached him for telling his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat as Congress counted votes. And it is an open question whether the commission will be authorized to investigate Trump' s actions.
Republicans have suggested an evenly divided 1 0- member panel and have also objected to some of the rationale for forming the commission. A second aid es aid that Pel osi ' s proposal would give broad latitude to the commission to investigate what led to the effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and that it quotes FBI and intelligence assessments that show some of the violence was motivated by racism and false narratives about the election.
McConnell said on the Senate floor that the language is“artificial cherry picking” and that the commission should either look narrow ly at the specific security failures in the Capitol or “potentially do something broader to analyze the full scope of political violence here in our country.”
He said an inquiry “with a hardwired partisan slant would never be legitimate in the eyes of the American people.”
McCarthy pointed to the Sept. 11 commission as the model. “It's only Speaker P el o si who' s trying to make this thing partisan,” he said.
That commission in 2004 made 41 recommendations to prevent another terrorist attack, covering tighter domestic security, the reform of intelligence gathering and new foreign policy directions. Several of them were later passed by Congress and signed by then-President George W. Bush.