by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
The House Select Committee charged with investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump has now questioned more than two hundred individuals who had ties to the government or to the anarchy that occurred on that fateful day. Many of those who have been questioned are former members of the Trump administration who came forward on their own without the legal impetus of a subpoena, a clear indication that not everyone associated with the Trump White House was pleased with the way the day's events were carried out.
The full House has voted to hold former Trump advisor Steve Bannon in "Contempt of Congress" over his refusal to cooperate with the House investigation of the January 6th insurrection, and a federal grand jury has indicted Bannon on two charges of "Contempt of Congress." In addition to all of that, the House January 6th Select Committee has also voted to advance contempt proceedings for ex-Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and former House member and Trump chief-of-staff Mark Meadows.
So while there are times when it feels like nothing is being accomplished by the one committee whose job it is to find out what actually occurred on January 6th - and why - in reality an inordinate amount of work is being accomplished. Public hearings have been very limited so far, but the committee is promising that will soon change, and there has been a lack of news because there is no meaningful minority party (GOP) representation within the committee to constantly try to sabotage the work of the group through leaks and political maneuverings.
The committee was originally intended to be bipartisan, with a slim majority control going to the Democrats, the party currently in the majority in the House. However, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy named the GOP members to the group, he included two members who were grossly inappropriate based on their past actions and statements regarding the insurrection - Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana - and Speaker Pelosi promptly rejected them out--of-hand. (This past week Congressman Jordan was shown to have had involvement in the strategizing leading up to the violence at the Capitol.). When Pelosi rejected Jordan and Banks for seats of the January 6th Select Committee, Minority Leader McCarthy made what was undoubtedly the dumbest move of his political career and withdrew all of his GOP nominees for seats on the committee - announcing that the Republicans in Congress would have no part in the affair.
Now, many months later, the Republicans still have no part in the affair, nor a voice in what it does, nor a spy on the inside to keep theme abreast of the committee's work, nor any way to sabotage that work from the inside. Pelosi did appoint two Repbublican members to the group, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinsinger of Illinois, but both are clearly working for the interest of the nation and not for the political benefit of Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Parrty.
The January 6th Select Committee appears to be working hard - and quickly - for a government enterprise, but it must produce results before the fall elections when Republicans could regain control of the House and the Speakership - and stop the work of the committee in its tracks. If the committee fails to meet that deadline and the House does change hands as a result of the election, the committee should rush to publish all that it did manage to uncover about the treachery of last January so that future generations will know the dangers that were posed and how they were able to manifest in such an extreme and deadly manner.
Getting its findings out of the murky backrooms of Congress and before the public may be the January 6th Select Committee's biggest challenge, but judging from the group's already proven ability to stay on task and not get sidetracked by political noise, I suspect that the members will be up to that challenge.
The survival of democracy rests on their able shoulders.
No comments:
Post a Comment