Edge's News:The January. 6 Capitol Hill committee

In the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, lawmakers began to discuss the need for an investigation focused on what led to the attack, how the building was breached so easily and how any similar event could be prevented from happening again.

Chairman of the Committee Bennie Thompson

The idea of the inquiry quickly became partisan.

First, many Republicans said any investigation should also focus on violence and damage to public property during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. Then they argued that Democrats would simply use the investigation as a partisan political tool by focusing on former president Donald Trump’s behaviour in an attempt to tar the GOP ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Hope for comity wasn’t dead yet early in the year, and a bipartisan agreement was hammered out in May by the leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee to create an independent commission that was modelled on the panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

House Democrats then decided to create a special investigative committee, and the House passed a resolution establishing one on a 220-to-190 vote on June 30, with two Republicans joining Democrats in voting in favour of the panel.

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was born.

It is made up of seven Democrats and the two Republicans who voted to establish the committee, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. They joined at the request of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after House GOP leaders decided not to participate in the inquiry because Pelosi rejected two of their proposed members.

Committee members say they are making great progress, but Trump and his GOP supporters continue to charge that the inquiry is an overtly partisan exercise designed to undermine Trump and his allies.

With midterm elections in November, this year looks to be contentious and demanding for the panel, with public hearings and publicly released reports on the agenda.

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