Tag: jan 6 commission
McCarthy

Defying Subpoena, McCarthy Rejects Select Panel's Oversight

The leader of House Republicans Kevin McCarthy has responded to his subpoena from the House Select Committee with a lengthy letter from his attorney, arguing, like others have tried and failed before him, that the panel lacks “valid legislative purpose.”

And as for his own discussions with former President Donald Trump—impeached for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last year—those details, McCarthy argues, are not subject to oversight.

McCarthy’s response also came with a list of demands, much like his colleague in the House and fellow Trump-ally Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. But unlike Jordan, who at the very least offered to provide an "adequate response” if his requests were met, McCarthy’s attorney, Elliot Berke, opted instead to present only McCarthy’s challenge to the committee’s authority—with the demand that members on the panel defend their “legal rationale” for issuing the subpoena.

“It is unclear how the Select Committee believes it is operating within the bounds of law or even within the confines of the authorizing resolution,” Berke wrote in the 11-page letter to committee chair Bennie Thompson.

As for the California Republican’s conversations with Trump on the day of the attack—the details of which the committee has sought for months and beyond what has potentially been publicly reported—McCarthy’s attorney says that information would effectively have no bearing on whatever legislative agenda the probe might have.

”Of course, the Select Committee has no valid legislative interest or oversight authority to question the Leader about public statements he has already made to the press or in the House Chamber,” Berke wrote.

McCarthy, through his attorney, also accused the committee of wishing to “interrogate him” politically and slammed the panel as unconstitutional and acting beyond the “power of inquiry as decreed by our Founding Fathers.”

Federal courts have already established that the committee has a valid legislative interest in investigating the events leading up to January 6. This decision was rendered in John Eastman’s fight to keep the committee away from documents it deemed pertinent to the probe’s fact-finding mission and again when the Republican National Committee tried to shield data from the committee about its fundraising materials.

Those documents, the committee has argued, were entrenched with the former president’s falsehoods and lies about the outcome of the 2020 election and this was used to effectively defraud the public.

McCarthy Letter to Bennie T... by Daily Kos

The response also contends at length that the committee itself was improperly formed because just nine members sit on it and the resolution states the speaker “shall appoint 13 members to the select committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.”

But McCarthy had his chance to nominate picks to the committee. Some of his picks were accepted by Pelosi and others were denied. When Pelosi sent two of the nominees back—including Trump stalwart Jim Jordan—McCarthy, to borrow a phrase, took his ball and went home.

He ended negotiations cold and established clearly that he would not continue engaging with the committee.

The January 6 committee, as it stands today with nine members, includes seven Democrats and two Republicans.

An investigatory body was initially proposed and designed to be an independent, truly bipartisan commission. Democrats suggested splitting membership right down the middle, affording equal subpoena powers to both their party and the Republican Party.

But this proposal couldn’t muster enough support in the Senate and as such, the dreams of that commission were shut down.

Republicans continued to balk, largely, at holding any investigation at all. In the House, only two Republicans—the only two that now serve on the committee, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger—voted in favor of forming the select committee.

The House passed the resolution.

Five members of the House including McCarthy and Jordan have been hit with subpoenas for their records and depositions. The committee also sent subpoenas to Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Andy Biggs of Arizona. To a man, each have have refused to comply.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

‘Hang Mike Pence’ Chants

Trump Reportedly Approved Of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ Chants

The mob calling for former Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged during the attack on the U.S. Capitol reportedly prompted Donald Trump to remark that “maybe” Penceshould be hanged, according to testimony provided to the House Select Committee.

According to a report from The New York Times published on Wednesday, at least one witness has told the panel investigating the attack that it was Mark Meadows, Trump’s then-chief of staff, who divulged Trump’s remark about Pence made to colleagues at the White House on January6.

Meadows reportedly left Trump sitting in the dining room of the Oval Office where the 45th president was watching the melee unfold on television.

He was irritated that Pence had been moved to safety, the witness said.

Once away from Trump, “Mr. Meadows… then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung,” the Times reported.

The “tone” Trump used is unknown.

Trump’s alleged comment appears to have been corroborated, at least in part, by some of the testimony delivered to the committee by Cassidy Hutchinson, a onetime legislative aide to Trump.

“It was not immediately clear how much detailed information Ms. Hutchinson provided. She has cooperated with the committee in three separate interviews after receiving a subpoena,” the Times noted.

According to the Times, a lawyer for Meadows responded to the report and said he had “every reason to believe” that the claim was untrue. Separately, a spokesman for Trump, Taylor Budowich, only responded by railing about the Jan. 6 committee running a “smear campaign.”

Hutchinson was first subpoenaed in November. In March, when the committee pursued records from Meadows in court, it revealed a partial transcript of her deposition.

She told investigators that during one planning call before Congress met to certify the electoral votes on Jan. 6, lawmakers like Reps. Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert (among others) were fervently calling for Congress to stop the count and suggested that Pence had the authority to do so.

He did not.

Hutchinson went on to say that Rep. Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, supported the idea of “sending people to the Capitol” on January 6.

Perry was one of many Republican lawmakers hit with a request for cooperation over the course of the insurrection probe’s investigation. But after stonewalling the committee for weeks, a round of formal subpoenas were sent to him and others including Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Kevin McCarthy, leader of the House GOP.

The Jan. 6 committee begins its hearings on June 9 and according to a draft schedule first obtained by The Guardian, the first hearing will air during primetime at 8PM ET.

There will be six hearings—for now. Investigators like Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, have indicated there could be more later.

After the first hearing on June 9, the next hearings will be held on June 15, June 16, June 21, and June 23. Like the first hearing, the last scheduled meeting on June 23 will air at 8PM. All of the other dates will feature testimony that starts at 10 AM.

The morning hearings are expected to last between two and three hours and for primetime slots, about an hour and-a-half to two hours is being allocated.

Raskin told Daily Kos recently that the committee hearings would offer unique, new, and chilling insights into the attack. He said he hopes the information they will present will arm the nation with “intellectual self-defense” against aspiring and existing authoritarians still in the midst.

The committee may also draw attention to another detail tacked onto the end of the Times report Wednesday: Meadows, witnesses have testified, used a fireplace in his office to burn documents.

Though the public hearings are fast approaching, the committee is still seeking cooperation from witnesses and conducting interviews. Just last week, the committee hit Rep. Barry Loudermilk with a request for his voluntary cooperation.

The panel asked the Georgia Republican last week to share information about a tour that he gave through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 5.

Loudermilk balked, saying on May 19 that he gave a “constituent family with young children” the tour because they were meeting with him in House office buildings.

“The family never entered the Capitol building,” Loudermilk said. “No place that the family went on the 5th was breached on the 6th, the family did not enter the Capitol grounds on the 6th, and no one in that family has been investigated or charged in connection to January 6th.”

A day later on May 20, however, Loudermilk said that he “took a family with young children and their guests who were visiting Washington to lunch in a cafeteria in one of the House office buildings” and he noted that “some were actually wearing red baseball caps.”

There was “nothing unusual or nefarious about this family’s visit to see their congressman,” he said.

But in an interview that Loudermilk gave to WBHF radio on Jan. 6, he said he had roughly a dozen people “come by and visit.”

His account from that day doesn’t exactly line up with his remarks in the past week.

On Jan. 6, Loudermilk told WBHF:

“We had them in our office. They were definitely peaceful people. People that we’ve met at church. They were supporters of the president. They just wanted to be up here as if it were another rally.”

Loudermilk did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

January 6 pro-Trump Capitol insurrection.

House Homeland Security Committee Reaches Bipartisan Deal On Jan. 6 Commission

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Members of Congress have reached a deal on a commission that will probe the violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol 128 days after a mob of Donald Trump supporters carried out the attack. The deal, reached by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and ranking member John Katko (R-NY), was announced by Thompson.

The House is expected to vote on a bill that would establish the commission in the coming weeks, according to a report from CNBC.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday morning that he wanted the commission to look beyond the Capitol insurrection: "I know Nancy Pelosi played politics with this for a number of months, and you got to look at the buildup before, and what went on afterward, otherwise the commission is not worth it," he said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Congress has held multiple hearings on the events of the January 6 insurrection, when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol to demand lawmakers block certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory in the 2020 presidential election. Five people died as a result, and roughly 140 law enforcement officers were injured with everything from head trauma to burns.

However, the so-called National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex will not be made up of members of Congress or any currently serving government officials.

Instead, it will have ten members, five each appointed by Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, who will be experts in key fields such as law enforcement, intelligence, counterterrorism, law, and civil rights.

The commission will have the power to subpoena documents and testimony related to the attack from relevant figures and government departments.

Thompson said in a statement announcing the deal on the commission:

Inaction — or just moving on — is simply not an option. The creation of this commission is our way of taking responsibility for protecting the U.S. Capitol. After all, the Capitol is not just a historic landmark; it is where our constituents come to see their democracy in action. As such, we owe it to the Capitol Police and all who enter our citadel of democracy to investigate the attack. The timing of this action is particularly poignant with this being National Police Week, when we honor those who gave their lives to protect us.

Democrats have been pushing for a commission for months.

However, Republican leaders were blocking a deal by demanding it also look into Black Lives Matter protests and antifa, which had nothing to do with the January 6 attack.

The GOP lost that battle: The deal reached by Thompson and Katko does not include BLM or antifa in the commission's charge.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Republicans were blocking the commission because some GOP lawmakers may be implicated in the findings of the review.

McCarthy did not commit to voting for it. He reportedly said Friday that he wants to see the details and that he wants the commission to focus on more than just the events of January 6.

The commission is mandated to submit a final report to the president and Congress by the end of 2021.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Fearful Senate Republicans Will Filibuster To Stop Capitol Riot Commission

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

The odds that the Senate will pass a bipartisan commission to study the origins of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol are growing increasingly slim, as Senate Republicans are coming out one by one to say they do not support the probe.

Even Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump for inciting the violent insurrection say they do not support the commission, twisting themselves in pretzels to justify their decision.

And that makes it increasingly likely that the commission will be the first thing Republicans filibuster during President Joe Biden's tenure. Current filibuster rules say that legislation in the Senate must garner 60 votes in order to proceed. Given that the Senate is split 50-50 along partisan lines, that means Democrats need 10 GOP votes to pass bills.

"I don't think there will be 10 votes on our side for it," Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), told Politico. "At this stage, I'd be surprised if you're gonna get even a handful."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will bring the commission up for a vote, whether or not it has enough GOP support to avoid a filibuster — meaning that if 10 Republicans do not vote in favor of the commission, it will be officially blocked.

"Senate Republicans can show everyone if they want to pursue the truth about January 6th or just want to cover up for Donald Trump and insurrectionists," Schumer tweeted on Thursday. "I will bring the House-passed legislation for the January 6th Commission to the Senate floor for a vote."

Republicans who have come out against the commission have falsely claimed it's not bipartisan and will be used as a witch hunt by Democrats.

"The current commission proposed by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats appears to be a platform to score partisan political points," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said in a statement about why he opposes the commission.

The framework of the commission, however, was brokered by the Democratic chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and the GOP ranking member on that same body.

The members of the commission would be equally appointed by Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress, according to the agreement. And any subpoenas would require a majority vote, meaning there would need to be buy-in from the GOP-appointed members.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who came out against the commission on Wednesday, said the arrests by federal law enforcement are sufficient, even though the arrests will not lead to a comprehensive report about what went wrong and how to prevent future attacks like the Jan. 6 insurrection again. That's something a commission would explicitly do.

Even Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection, came out against the commission.

Burr told Politico that part of his opposition to the commission is that it would drag into the midterm elections.

Multiple GOP lawmakers have said that they believe the commission could hamper Republican chances of taking back the House and Senate in November 2022, with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) saying that a probe could uncover that some Republican lawmakers played a role in the attack.

"I want our midterm message to be on the kinds of things that the American people are dealing with: That's jobs and wages and the economy and national security, safe streets and strong borders — not relitigating the 2020 elections," Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told CNN.

Republicans filibustering a bipartisan commission to probe a deadly attack on democracy gives progressive Democrats who have been railing against the arcane Senate procedure more fuel to their argument that the filibuster must go.

"Filibustering a bipartisan Commission regarding the January 6 insurrection is a three dimensional way to make the point that the filibuster is primarily a destructive force in American politics," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) tweeted.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.