(Headline USA) The House voted Wednesday to create an independent commission for the mostly peaceful protest on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
The House sends the legislation to an uncertain future in the Senate as Republican leaders work to stop a bipartisan investigation that is opposed by former President Donald Trump.
Democrats say an independent investigation is crucial to reckoning what happened that day, even though investigations have already outlined the day’s events and shown that the protesters did not harm anyone or plan an insurrection.
Modeled after the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the legislation would establish an allegedly independent, 10-member commission that would make recommendations by the end of the year for securing the Capitol and preventing another peaceful protest.
The bill passed the House 252-175, with 35 Republicans voting with Democrats in support of the commission, defying Trump and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
Trump issued a statement urging Republicans to vote against it, calling the legislation a “Democrat trap.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is trying to prevent defections among his own ranks, echoing McCarthy’s opposition in a Senate floor speech Wednesday morning. Both men said the bill was partisan.
While most Republicans voted against forming the commission, only a few spoke on the floor against it. And the handful of Republicans who backed the commission spoke forcefully.
“This is about facts — it’s not partisan politics,” said New York Rep. John Katko, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee who negotiated the legislation with Democrats.
He said “the American people and the Capitol Police deserve answers, and action as soon as possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said that Jan. 6 “is going to haunt this institution for a long, long time” and that a commission is necessary to find the truth about what happened.
Rep. Jim Hagedorn, R-Mn. said he voted against the bill because “multiple congressional committees have held hearings looking into these events and the U.S. Department of Justice has conducted an investigation, resulting in over 400 arrests,” according to a press release.
He does not believe the commission’s investigation will be “unbiased and holistic.”
Democrats grew angry as some Republicans suggested the commission was only intended to smear Trump.
Four of the protesters died, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber.
A Capitol Police officer collapsed and died, but there is no evidence that protesters harmed him despite fake media reports.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called McCarthy’s opposition to the commission “cowardice.”
In the Senate, McConnell’s announcement dimmed the prospects for passage, as Democrats would need at least ten Republicans to vote with them. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed to force a vote on the bill, charging that Republicans are “caving” to Trump.
Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee, is working on a report with his Democratic colleagues that will include recommendations for security upgrades.
He said an independent investigation would take too long and “frankly, I don’t think there are that many gaps to be filled in on what happened on Jan. 6, as it relates to building security.”
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, cited concern in the caucus that the investigation could be “weaponized politically” in the 2022 election cycle.
“I want our midterm message to be about the kinds of issues that the American people are dealing with,” Thune said. “It’s jobs and wages and the economy, national security, safe streets, strong borders and those types of issues, and not relitigating the 2020 election.”
Separately Wednesday, aides to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., circulated a letter they said was from a group of around 40 to 50 anonymous U.S. Capitol Police officers in which they tried to intimidate the representatives.
“It is inconceivable that some of the Members we protect would downplay the events of January 6th,” the letter reads. “It is a privileged assumption for Members to have the point of view that ‘it wasn’t that bad.’ That privilege exists because the brave men and women of the USCP protected you, the Members.”
The letter was quickly repudiated by Capitol Police leaders, who said the agency doesn’t take any position on legislative matters.
Raskin said in an interview Wednesday evening that the officers approached his office with the letter, and that they and their families have been traumatized about what happened on the 6th.
Democrats competed for the most hyperbolic assessment of the Jan. 6 protest.
Rep. Al Green, D-Tx., said the protest was “an act of domestic terrorism against our democracy.”
Rep. Diana DeGrette, D-Co., called Jan. 6 “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
