Will Congress Get Serious About Jan. 6?

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Now that Senate Republicans have defeated an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving ahead with a backup plan and setting up a House select committee. Right away, she’s going to have a difficult decision to make.

By rule, Pelosi has the authority to veto Republican selections for the committee; by custom, parties choose their own members for such panels. But this is, to say the least, an unusual situation. Only a handful of House Republicans voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over the attack on the Capitol. Only 35 voted to support the originally proposed commission. It’s not clear how many Republicans even acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election and was legitimately inaugurated; most of them will at least say that he’s president, but many duck the question of how he got there. Some still back Trump’s false claims about fraud. And a handful participated publicly in riling up the crowd on Jan. 6.

One would hope that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would only select lawmakers who at least accepted that the attack on the Capitol was a terrible assault on U.S. democracy. We should be prepared to be disappointed, however. For one thing, Politico’s Olivia Beavers reports that few Republicans want to serve on the committee, with the main exceptions being the most enthusiastic Trump supporters. That’s perhaps not surprising. Any Republican who fails to support everything Trump says is liable to draw his wrath, the anger of his strongest supporters and therefore a primary challenge.

McCarthy probably isn’t eager to select publicly declared candidates such as Representatives Matt Gaetz (who is in the middle of his own scandal), Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert — all of whom are loose cannons who would be more likely to backfire against the Republicans than help. But he also is unlikely to pick lawmakers who voted for the independent commission and might try to take this investigation seriously; instead, he’ll probably seek Trump allies such as Representative Jim Jordan, who will attempt to make the proceedings a clown show without necessarily acting like the main clowns.

That’s where Pelosi will have a decision to make. She’s already circulating the possibility that she might choose a Republican for one of the eight spots. That might give her some space to veto one or more of McCarthy’s picks. My first instinct was that she should draw a line in the sand — such as requiring that all committee members accept that Biden won the election. But on second thought, I’m not so sure that’s worth doing. What’s really important is that the committee’s rules and procedures be stacked in favor of a serious investigation. With such rules in place, and a strong group of Democrats on board, it probably isn’t worth fighting over which Republicans are involved. The media already believes (with good reason!) that the insurrection was a really bad thing and that Republicans were responsible for blocking a nonpartisan commission to look into it. I think it’s unlikely that adding a group of Trump loyalists to the select committee will change that.

1. Susan P. Liebell on John Locke and dangerous Second Amendment narratives.

2. Christina Greer on Kamala Harris.

3. Dave Hopkins on Harris and the vice presidency. One thing I’d add: All vice presidents become objects of ridicule; it just seems to go with the job. No matter how impressive the occupant was previously, the office tends to at least temporarily diminish them. But in the long run, former vice presidents are almost invariably considered well qualified for the presidency.

4. Tom Paskhalis, Bryn Rosenfeld and Katerina Tertytchnaya at the Monkey Cage on authoritarian control of the media.

5. Walter Olson on the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

6. Joyce White Vance on the Justice Department’s action against Georgia.

7. And Neil Irwin on post-pandemic supply chains.

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