President Joe Biden concluded that “democracy did prevail” six months after the “disorder” of the Capitol Hill riot.
Biden, certified by Congress as the winner of the 2020 election on Jan. 6 after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the proceedings, said the riot “posed an existential crisis and a test of whether our democracy could survive — a sad reminder that there is nothing guaranteed about our democracy.”
“While it shocked and saddened the nation and the world, six months later, we can say unequivocally that democracy did prevail … We are the United States of America, and over the last few months we have shown what we can do when we come together — beat a deadly virus, get our economy going again, and prove that democracy can deliver for the people,” the president said in a statement on Tuesday.
CAPITOL RIOT’S UNANSWERED QUESTIONS SIX MONTHS ON
Biden called on “people of goodwill and courage to stand up to the hate, the lies, and the extremism that led to this vicious attack, including determining what happened so that we can remember it and not bury it hoping we forget.”
“Together, let us demonstrate to ourselves, and to the world, the enduring strength and the limitless capacity and goodness of who we are as Americans,” he continued.
Authorities have pressed charges against hundreds of individuals in connection to the riot. After weeks of deliberations about makeup and scope, the House approved a partisan committee to investigate the events surrounding Jan. 6.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi picked eight members, including GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, and left five seats empty to be chosen in consultation with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Cheney, a leading Republican critic of former President Donald Trump, has defended her participation despite pushback from GOP colleagues, including some who have called for her to be stripped of her committee memberships.
“I’m honored to be on this committee. We have an obligation to have a thorough, sober investigation of what happened on Jan. 6 and the attack on the Capitol on that day,” she told reporters, adding that “dedication to the rule of law, and the peaceful transfer of power has to come above any concern about partisanship or politics.”
Trump, who claims the 2020 election was stolen from him, bashed the 35 Republicans who voted in favor of establishing the investigative body late last month.
“See, 35 wayward Republicans — they just can’t help themselves. We have much better policy and are much better for the Country, but the Democrats stick together, the Republicans don’t,” Trump said in a statement following the vote. “[Democrats] don’t have the Romney’s, Little Ben Sasse’s, and Cheney’s of the world. Unfortunately, we do. Sometimes there are consequences to being ineffective and weak. The voters understand!”
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The House impeached Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection for his words and actions preceding the Jan. 6 attack, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution. The Senate, led by Republicans at the time, acquitted the former president.
Trump, impeached for the first time in 2019 on two Ukraine-related charges before being acquitted by the Senate, acknowledged a different aspect of the Jan. 6 riot in a recent tweemail, asking, “Who shot Ashli Babbitt?” referring to a 35-year-old Navy veteran shot and killed in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
