Congress should investigate fully the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol—and similar recent riots at iconic federal sites.
Unfortunately, it will never happen. Why not?
The current committee does not have bipartisan members. Nancy Pelosi, D.Calif., House Speaker, forbade Republican nominees previously selected by the House Minority Leader to serve on this committee.
No speaker had ever before rejected the minority party’s nominees to a select House committee.
Pelosi’s own cynical criteria for Republican participation was twofold: any willing minority Republican members had to have voted to impeach former President Donald Trump while having no realistic chance of being re-elected in 2022.
Of some 210 Republican House members, that left just Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who were willing and able to fit Pelosi’s profile.
A real investigation would have ignited argumentation, cross-examination, and disagreements—the sort of give-and-take for which congressional committees are famous.
The Jan. 6 show trial, however, has no dissenting views. Its subtext was right out of the Soviet minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria’s credo: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
What if Trump didn’t want to run for the presidency again? Would the committee still exist?
Its Hollywood-produced optics clearly show that the committee is not interested in inconvenient truths. Why did a Capitol Officer shoot a petite, unarmed lady who was trying to enter a Capitol window. And why was the officer’s identity and, indeed all information about his record, withheld from the public?
Why didn’t the committee investigate the presence of large numbers FBI agents and informants among the crowd? After all, progressive New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg who was there on Jan. 6, claimed, “There were a ton of FBI informants amongst the people who attacked the Capitol.”
About his own journalistic colleagues advancing a psychodramatic “insurrection” narrative, Rosenberg scoffed, “They were making too big a deal. They were making (Jan. 6) some organized thing that it wasn’t.”
A real committee would also investigate whether there were many warnings that large crowds would gather, but little government surveillance to ensure security in the event of violent elements.
A real committee would learn why the government and media insisted that officer Brian Sicknick was killed by Trump supporters—even when it was known he died of natural causes.
None of the questions will be answered because none will be asked because the committee’s role is not inquiry but confirmation of a useful narrative.
A real committee would also investigate the other, more serious riots on federal property that occurred months earlier.
On May 31, 2020, violent protestors tried to ramble the White House grounds. Rioters sought to burn down the nearby historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.
D.C. Mayor Muriel bowser mysteriously didn’t send police to reinforce overwhelmed Secret Service officers who, at times, seemed unable keep the mob away from the White House.
The giddy New York Times later crowed, “Trump shrinks back.” Was the Times preening that the president was a coward for retreating from a righteous mob?
The Secret Service moved the president and the first family to an underground bunker as a precaution.
These riots at or near the White House continued throughout the fall, but then mysteriously abated in the final weeks before the election.
Less than three weeks after the violent Washington riot, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris seemed to incite the continuing violent protests, “They’re not going to stop . . . This is a movement. . . they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”
Note that Harris’ cheerleading was joined by a host of prominent left-wing luminaries who contextualized the violence. The “1619 Project” architect Nikole Hannah-Jones boasted, “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.”
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pontificated, “And please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”
The 2020 summer riotings, arson and looting lasted almost four months. It left over 35 people dead, 1,500 officers injured, 14,000 arrests and property damage of between $1-2 billion to its victims.
Many of the violence was directed at iconic government buildings, including courthouses and police precincts. There were never federal investigations into why the destruction continued.
Why were so many people arrested released by authorities?
How had antifa and BLM radicals orchestrated violence via social media? What was the role played by prominent elected officials in encouraging violence or communicating with the ringleaders?
A truly bipartisan House Select Committee dedicated to ending violence directed at Congress, the White House, and federal courthouses might have been helpful in probing this dark time in American history.
This is precisely why there was not such a committee.
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