GOP Senators block bill to create Jan. 6 commission

[Stevicus]

Jan. 6 commission: Senate Republicans block bill to probe Capitol insurrection (cnbc.com)

• Senate Republicans blocked a bill to create an independent commission to investigate the pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
• Only a handful of GOP senators joined with Democrats in backing the bipartisan legislation, which would create a 10-member panel to probe what led to the attack.
• Republican leaders urged opposition to creating the panel as they downplay criticism of former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

McConnell looks a bit strange in this photo.

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a bill that would create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, as Democrats and the GOP diverge over how best to probe the attack on the legislature and prevent another assault on the democratic process.

In a 54-35 vote, the measure failed to hit the threshold needed to overcome a filibuster as nearly all GOP senators opposed it. Six Republicans voted to advance the proposal: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska. All of those senators but Portman voted in February to find former President Donald Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection.


The vote likely snuffs out the creation of a panel Democrats and some Republicans have called vital to understanding what led to the violent attempt to disrupt the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. GOP leaders have contended the commission could duplicate existing efforts by the Justice Department and congressional committees to investigate the pro-Trump mob attack, which led to five deaths, including that of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.

Sicknick’s mother met with a handful of Republican senators on Thursday and pushed them to support the commission.

Republicans have tried to divert attention from the insurrection — which Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories helped to fuel — as they look to regain control of Congress in next year’s midterms. Top GOP lawmakers, particularly in the House, have aimed to tamp down criticism of Trump, who remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party.

“Out of fear or fealty to Donald Trump, the Republican minority just prevented the American people from getting the full truth about Jan. 6,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the vote.

The Democratic-held House passed the bipartisan legislation in a 252-175 vote earlier this month. Thirty-five Republicans supported it, while 175 GOP representatives voted against it. House Republican leaders urged opposition to it after Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., negotiated the deal with Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.


The bill failed to win the Republican votes needed to advance in the evenly split Senate after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged his caucus to oppose it.

“I’ll continue to support the real, serious work of our criminal justice system and our own Senate committees,” McConnell said Thursday ahead the vote. “And I’ll continue to urge my colleagues to oppose this extraneous layer when the time comes for the Senate to vote.”

The bill would set up a 10-person commission to investigate the factors that led to the insurrection. Democratic and Republican leaders would each appoint half of the members, who could not be current government officials.

The panel, which would have subpoena power, would prepare a report on its probe by the end of the year.

In pushing senators to support the commission bill on Thursday, Schumer said the country needed to root out belief in Trump’s unfounded claims that widespread fraud led to his defeat in November. He called the lies a “cancer” in the GOP.

“We have to investigate, expose, and report on the truth,” he said. “We need to establish a trusted record of what really transpired on January the 6th and the events that preceded it. That’s what this commission is designed to do, in a bipartisan, straight-down-the-middle, manner.”

At least one top Senate Republican has suggested the panel would distract from the party’s midterm election messaging. Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said earlier this month that “anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 election I think is a day lost on being able to draw contrast between us and the Democrats’ very radical left-wing agenda.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, repeatedly urged Republicans to vote to set up the commission. However, the West Virginia senator said he would still not join with most of his Democratic colleagues in moving to scrap the filibuster, which would allow the party to pass the legislation on its own.

Biden, whose assumption of the presidency the pro-Trump mob tried to disrupt, scoffed Thursday at the prospect of senators voting against setting up the commission.

“I can’t imagine anyone voting against the establishment of a commission on the greatest assault since the Civil War on the Capitol,” he said.

I don't recall any actual assaults on the Capitol during the Civil War. The Union controlled the area surrounding Washington, including part of northern Virginia (which included Robert E. Lee's house, which he never visited during the war). The Confederates could never have mounted an attack against DC.

Just the same, I think there should have been a commission. An attorney for one of the rioters described them as "short bus people," meaning that they were mentally challenged. It seems that an insurrection would require intelligent people, military discipline, training, planning, organization - none of which seemed evident here.

 

[The Hammer]

It seems that an insurrection would require intelligent people, military discipline, training, planning, organization - none of which seemed evident here.

That's the makings of a successful insurrection. A failed insurrection is still an attempt.

Like attempted murder.

 

[The Hammer]

I absolutely hate this ****ing country's politics.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Republicans were given everything they wanted in the bill forming the commission, then reneged.

Now it's time for Nancy Pelosi to start an investigation and damn the Republicans. They had their chance. Screw 'em!

 

[ecco]

I call upon the Attorney General to launch an investigation of the insurrection, the events that led up to it, and the people involved. Furthermore, the AG should look at those people primarily responsible for derailing the Congressional investigation. People like Mitch McConnel, John Thune, and Mike Braun. Let the AG determine what they were afraid would be discovered.

 

[Quetzal]

McConnell looks a bit strange in this photo.

Turtles typically do when they wear a tie.

 

[Quetzal]

So... if a literal attack on the capitol building that resulted in deaths is not good enough for this sort of investigation, what is?

 

[fantome profane]

I wonder if they will be more willing to investigate the next insurrection. Because it is coming.

Over 30 Million Americans Believe in QAnon’s Most Outrageous Conspiracy

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They'd be all over that and refuse to let it die if Hillary were involved.

He looks like a Deep One about to begin his life in the ocean in just about all of his pictures. Have you seen him blink? I've never seen him blink.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I absolutely hate this ****ing country's politics.

They are obsessed.

 

[Twilight Hue]

They'd be all over that and refuse to let it die if Hillary were involved.

He looks like a Deep One about to begin his life in the ocean in just about all of his pictures. Have you seen him blink? I've never seen him blink.

I'm starting to think he's a robot.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm starting to think he's a robot.

What I've learned from reading how robots/AI learn when we teach them, I try to be more nice than that to technology. Even a robot could have seen the dangers of playing politics instead of extinguishing the election lies before things got out of hand.
At least there's no Dagon to come after me for joking about McConnell being one of his kids.

 

[epronovost]

I'm starting to think he's a robot.

If that's true, I would make these simple requests:

1) de-bug your robot so that it proposes and supports intelligent policies.
2) make it prettier.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm fine holding Trump, his minions, & his supporters
responsible for the event. But I question what any
commission would come up with that justifies the
expense. Any ideas?

 

[SomeRandom]

I wonder if they will be more willing to investigate the next insurrection. Because it is coming.

Over 30 Million Americans Believe in QAnon’s Most Outrageous Conspiracy

Okay this Q stuff fascinates me in a way that I’m sure is unhealthy. Like it’s sort of infiltrated here a bit. I think, I dunno I saw some news report that claimed so a while back (I have to assume it’s mostly Ex pat Americans anyway. Sorry, not sorry.)
A streamer I sometimes watch covers conspiracy theories (Tinfoil Tuesday) and there’s a specific Q person that just makes me question humanity in general. And I don’t wish ill on him or anything he seems kind of sweet just gullible. But I dunno, it’s both sad and infuriating at the same time.
Like this is a phenomenon that needs to be studied. It just baffles me

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Republican were given everything they wanted in the bill forming the commission, then reneged.

Now it's time for Nancy Pelosi to start an investigation and damn the Republicans. They had their chance. Screw 'em!

Yes! And the beauty is, if Pelosi strikes a "Select Committee," it no longer has to have equal representation on both sides, and the power to subpoena will reside with whichever party (i.e. Democrats) owns the majority.

I hope she's already busy setting it up. It's time.

 

[sun rise]

I call upon the Attorney General to launch an investigation of the insurrection, the events that led up to it, and the people involved. Furthermore, the AG should look at those people primarily responsible for derailing the Congressional investigation. People like Mitch McConnel, John Thune, and Mike Braun. Let the AG determine what they were afraid would be discovered.

The AG should investigate traitors in Congress who aided and abetted the insurrection.

 

[tytlyf]

I think the attack deserves an investigation. Rarely happens in America's history. I think the last time were the British. Doesn't matter if they were ignorant doing it.
If the shoe were on the other foot, the crooked Republicans would stop at nothing to make it happen.

Republicans = party above country

 

[tytlyf]

The AG should investigate traitors in Congress who aided and abetted the insurrection.

Those are just as responsible as the man who "knows more than the Generals"

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I'm fine holding Trump, his minions, & his supporters
responsible for the event. But I question what any
commission would come up with that justifies the
expense. Any ideas?

If it were seen to be non-partisan -- which I believe the Democrats rightly ceded during negotiations on how to set it up -- it might come up with something that a majority of Americans could accept as truthful. And that, in my view, would be a very, very valuable outcome.