House creates Capitol riot committee to investigate Jan. 6. GOP Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger vote with Democrats

Capitol riot commission to study Jan. 6 blocked by Senate Republicans

Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan commission to study the U.S. Capitol riot in January. Partisanship was the reason Republicans opposed it.

Staff Video, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The House voted Wednesday to create a bipartisan committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and make recommendations about how to avoid another attack.

The move came after the Senate last month blocked creation of a commission approved by the full Congress. No Senate vote is needed to create a House committee. Most Republicans opposed creating a commission or special committee, arguing it would be used as a political weapon in next year’s election.

The House approved the committee on a 222-190 vote.

“It will find the truth, which clearly the Republicans fear,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who called herself heartbroken about the Senate blocking a commission similar to the one that studied the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “It does not appear at this time that we can have a bipartisan commission. Hopefully that could still happen. But in the meantime, we will have a select committee.”

About 140 police officers were injured during the melee and five people died. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of natural causes the day after being sprayed with chemicals by rioters, urged senators to approve a commission.

Pelosi invited Gladys Sicknick and the officer’s partner, Sandra Garza, to sit in her gallery box above the House floor for debate on the committee.

Pelosi also invited Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metro Police Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges to attend the debate. Fanone suffered a heart attack during the attack, Hodges was crushed in a doorway and Dunn reported racist slurs hurled from the crowd.

“The sheer scale of the violence that day is shocking,” said Pelosi, who applauded the officers in the gallery during her speech.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., apologized to the officers for having to hear the debate opposing the investigation of the attack against them.

“A no vote is a vote to cover for those who brutally attacked the police on Jan. 6,” McGovern said. “They will be watching as we cast these votes. History will be watching.”

The committee will have 13 members, including five appointed “after consultation” with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Republicans replied that despite consultation, Pelosi would choose the members.

The Democratic chairman will be authorized to issue subpoenas, a change from the commission proposal, which would have required support from at least one member appointed by Republicans. The committee also doesn’t have a deadline to finish its work, in contrast to a Dec. 31 deadline for the commission.

Although 35 House Republicans supported the commission, only two supported the committee. One of the lawmakers who changed his vote, Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., said the commission would have been bipartisan and limited, but that the committee hand-picked by Pelosi with a limitless budget would be a “partisan exercise” that “isn’t useful.”

The two Republicans who supported the committee were Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. They each also voted to impeach former President Donald Trump and to create a bipartisan commission.

Cheney said in a statement the committee should issue subpoenas promptly, hire skilled staffers and do its job thoroughly and expeditiously.

“The attack on January 6th was an unprecedented assault on Congress and the functioning of our democratic process,” Cheney said. “Since January 6th, the courage of my party’s leaders has faded. But the threat to our Republic has not.”

The resolution creating the committee called for it to study intelligence gathering before the attack and the use of online platforms to organize and execute domestic terrorist attacks. The committee will also study policies among Capitol Police, the National Guard and other agencies responding to an attack on the Capitol.

The committee was also assigned to make recommendations about how to prevent future acts of violent extremism and improve security around the Capitol.

Several lawmakers recalled the terror of rioters pounding on the doors of the House chamber and hearing a gunshot when a police officer shot and killed a woman. 

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said her heart was racing and she was trembling during the debate. Huddling in the House gallery on Jan. 6 reminded her of when she was shot as a congressional staffer during an investigative trip to Guyana in 1978, she said.

“I thought at that moment, ‘My God, I survived Guyana, but I’m not going to survive this in the House of democracy in the country in which I was born,'” Speier said. “But we’re going to find out why it happened and we’re going to make sure it never happens again.”

Opponents said the committee’s work will drift into next year. The Justice Department is already prosecuting more than 500 people allegedly involved in the attack.

Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said Democrats have already laid the blame for the attack on Trump, who was impeached for inciting the attack and acquitted in the Senate.

“The outcome of this investigation has in fact already been written,” Burgess said. “The Democrats have been publicly excoriating President Trump for months.”

Several congressional committees have been investigating the attack, including two Senate panels that already issued a report with recommendations.

“These investigations have been done and are ongoing,” said Rep. Michelle Fishbach, R-Minn. “It appears that this select committee is being done for purely political purposes.”