House GOP leaders won’t support probe
House Republican leaders say they will oppose the creation of a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol — and have so far declined to say whether they will even participate in the probe.
In a memo to all House Republicans late Tuesday, No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said the House panel “is likely to pursue a partisan agenda” in investigating the violent attack by former President Donald Trump’s supporters, and he encouraged Republicans to vote against it. A vote on a resolution that would create the panel is scheduled for Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Scalise declined to say whether members of his party would even agree to sit on the committee. House Republican leader Kevin Mccarthy also declined to say whether Republicans would participate.
The Republican opposition comes as Mccarthy is facing pressure to take the investigation seriously from police officers who responded to the attack, Democrats and even some of his fellow Republicans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited representatives of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Capitol Police to sit in the gallery and watch Wednesday’s vote, according to a person familiar with the plan. Dozens of those officers were brutally beaten as Trump’s supporters pushed past them and broke into the building to interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
The resolution introduced by the House speaker on Monday would have eight members on the committee appointed by Pelosi and five appointed “after consultation” with Mccarthy — meaning Pelosi could potentially have veto power over every appointment.
Republican participation in the investigation, and the appointments to the panel, could help determine whether the committee becomes a bipartisan effort or instead a hotbed of division. Two Senate committees issued a bipartisan report with security recommendations but did not examine the origins of the siege.
Two of the officers who responded to the attack, Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone and Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, met with Mccarthy on Friday and asked him to take the House investigation seriously.
Fanone, who has described being dragged down the Capitol steps by rioters who shocked him with a stun gun and beat him, said he asked Mccarthy for a commitment not to put “the wrong people” on the panel, a reference to those in the GOP who have downplayed the violence and defended the insurrectionists. Fanone said Mccarthy told him he would take his request seriously.
Sen. Mitt Romney, Rutah, has also publicly pressured Mccarthy. “I hope he appoints people who are seen as being credible,” he said Sunday on CNN.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a close Trump ally, said that he doesn’t know what Mccarthy is going to do but that it’s possible Republicans will just choose not to be involved.
“I know I’ve got real concerns — I know he does — that this is all just political, and that this is impeachment three against President Trump,“Jordan said.