Washington, May 20, 2021: The US House of Representatives has temporarily weathered the storm brewing around the issue of forming a fact finding panel to investigate the deadly Capitol riot in January.
Amid mounting tension and opposition from the Republican leadership, and despite opposition from top House republican Kevin McCarthy and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the house has voted 252 to 175 to approve a legislation that will allow for establishment of a 10 member panel commission.
Choosing to side with the Democrats and going against their party leadership, 35 Republicans have also joined in supporting the legislation. One House Republican, John Katko who worked with Democrats to craft the deal on the commission, says the role of the commission is to work and get results and it should therefore remain depoliticized. Katko urged his colleagues to set aside political differences at least on this important issue.
The riots were a result of Donald Trump and his supporters’ attempt to block certification of the election won by President Joe Biden. Mitch McConnell, who initially blamed former president Donald Trump as the sole inciting factor behind the violence at the Capitol, says he is open to the idea of forming a commission albeit with changes to its structure, and by Wednesday he said he was fully opposed to the House Democrats’ “slanted and unbalanced” proposal for the commission. To this end, he pointed out the ongoing efforts by law enforcement which had already resulted in over 400 arrests and said the commission would cause an unnecessary overlap. McConnell’s opposition will complicate the Bill’s progress in Senate, and at least 10 Republicans would have to side with Democrats to sign the Bill into law.
The composition of the proposed commission is such that it will have 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, with each side having equal subpoena power. According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Republicans appear to be afraid of the truth which is unfortunate, she also said she has yielded to several Republican demands as per the composition of the commission such as the 50-50 split in membership. McCarthy meanwhile slammed Pelosi’s tactics in forming the panel.
Some of the Republicans opposed to the commission say it is merely a means to attack Donald Trump and that it will further smear the reputation of Trump and his supporters in the coming years. Such were the views shared by House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene who is known to peddle Trump’s unsupported claim that the election was “stolen” from him.
Some Republican representatives meanwhile say they would like to see a broader scope on the investigations to include the violence that marred the Black Lives Matters protests last year but that Pelosi refuses to allow that.
According to Pelosi, the panel formed to investigate the Capitol riots will be similar in function to the one that investigated the 9/11 terrosirst attacks. The chairs of that high profile body from 2002, New Jersey Governor Tom Kean and ex-congressman Lee Hamilton said in a statement on Wednesday, that they endorse the Democrat’s proposal for the new commission and that its time to set side bipartisan politics and come together as Americans in pursuit of justice.
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