Pelosi says no to Biden creating Jan. 6 panel
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ruling out a presidential commission to study the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, telling House Democrats that having President Biden appoint a panel is unworkable even after the Senate blocked an independent probe last week.
Pelosi on Tuesday laid out possible next steps after last week’s Senate vote, in which Senate Republicans blocked legislation to create an independent, bipartisan panel to investigate the siege by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. She proposed four options for an investigation of the attack, according to a person on the private Democratic caucus call who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
The first option, Pelosi said, is to give the Senate another chance to vote on the commission. Six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the bill, and a seventh missed the vote but said he would have backed it. That means Democrats would only need support from three additional Republicans to reach the 60 votes needed for passage. The commission would be modeled after a highly respected panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The other options involve the House investigating the attack, meaning the probes would be inherently partisan. Pelosi suggested that she could appoint a new select committee to investigate the siege or give the responsibility to a single committee, like the House Homeland Security panel. Alternately, Pelosi said committees could simply push ahead with their own investigations that are already under way.
But the speaker said she believed a commission appointed by Biden — an idea pitched by some in her caucus after Friday’s Senate vote — was “not a workable idea in this circumstance” because Congress would still need to approve money and subpoena authority for the panel.
Pelosi’s comments come as members of both parties have pushed for a deep dive into the insurrection, which was designed to interrupt the presidential electoral count and was the worst attack on Congress in two centuries. Four rioters died in the attack, including a woman who was shot by police as she tried to break into the House chamber.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., opposes the commission, saying he believes the panel would be partisan even though it would be divided evenly between the two parties. McConnell’s criticism came after Trump opposed it and called the legislation a “Democrat trap.”