Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) warned Republicans on Monday that they’ll remorse their determination to reexamine the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Jeffries mentioned Democrats will use their participation in a newly launched GOP investigation of the rampage to focus on President Trump’s position in fomenting the violence that day.
“Republicans will remorse that they’ve determined to go down this highway,” Jeffries informed reporters within the Capitol.
Republicans final week voted to create a brand new Jan. 6 investigative committee, which is able to revisit the assault nearly three years after the preliminary Jan. 6 choose committee delivered its report blaming Trump for inciting the riot. The brand new panel additionally has powers to research the previous one.
Republican leaders have defended Trump’s actions surrounding the assault, bashing the preliminary investigation as a one-sided witch hunt aimed solely at hurting Trump politically. They’re anticipated to make use of the brand new committee in an effort to exonerate their White Home ally, who was impeached for a second time within the instant wake of the 2021 tragedy.
“Our goal is to answer the remaining questions, uncover all the facts, and implement reforms so this level of security failure never happens again,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who will chair the committee, mentioned after the panel was created.
“It’s time to finish the job.”
Democrats say they’ll use the brand new investigation to shine a light-weight, not solely on Trump’s actions, but in addition on the violence directed in opposition to law enforcement officials by his supporters and the crimes dedicated by a few of these MAGA loyalists since Trump pardoned them in January.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), because the rating member of the Home Judiciary Committee, is robotically thought-about an ex officio member of the brand new panel. And Jeffries named three different Democrats to the committee on Monday: Reps. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Jasmine Crockett (Texas) and Jared Moskowitz (Fla.).
“Donald Trump is trying to do with Jan. 6 what many fringe groups have done with Sept. 11, telling us it wasn’t planes that flew into the buildings but holograms, or missiles, or that it was an inside job,” Swallwell mentioned Monday. “And this is why we did not purchase the 9/11 loopy discuss then, or the Jan. 6 lies now: As a result of we noticed them with our personal eyes.”
Raskin, who was a member of the preliminary Jan. 6 committee, characterised a earlier Loudermilk investigation as “an attempted Orwellian rewrite” of the occasions surrounding the assault. He challenged the Republicans to search out any inaccuracies within the first choose committee’s probe of the occasion.
“The fact of the matter is they have not laid a glove on a single fact that was presented in the report of the bipartisan select committee on Jan. 6. All of their bizarre counter-theories about antifa and about the FBI have been completely and thoroughly debunked. They have gotten nowhere, and yet they insist once again on returning to the scene of the crime,” he mentioned.
“That gives us the chance to reeducate new generations of Americans about the dangers of political authoritarianism, and about the dangers of political and religious cults.”
Whereas Jeffries has the facility to call his Democratic picks for the brand new committee, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) retains the facility to veto any of these lawmakers as he deems acceptable. That was the case in 2021, when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) eliminated two of the preliminary Republican picks — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — for controversial statements and actions they made surrounding Jan. 6.
It’s unclear if the Speaker is able to settle for the 4 Democratic appointees. Jeffries mentioned he has knowledgeable Johnson of his choices, however advised there was no response.
“We let him know our selections for this subcommittee, and there is zero precedent for anybody from the opposite get together figuring out who’s going to take a seat on a subcommittee — if, in reality, they wish to take that subcommittee significantly,” Jeffries mentioned.
Johnson’s workplace didn’t reply Monday to a request for remark.
