A renewed Democratic push for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is the latest complication in Republican efforts to move on from re-litigating former President Donald Trump’s time in office.
With the midterm elections looming next year, and Democrats defending razor-thin majorities in both houses of Congress, Republicans would prefer to shine the spotlight on President Joe Biden’s record. Opposition to the incumbent is often a major driver of turnout in the midterm elections, especially during the first term.
Democrats, and some Republicans, remain adamant the events of Jan. 6 require a serious investigation. Trump supporters attacked the Capitol as Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, which the then-president alleged Biden won due to widespread voter fraud. The Trump Justice Department concluded there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to alter the outcome of the election, as did most contemporaneous state investigations.
In addition to shifting the focus to topics Republicans would prefer not to have at the forefront of the debate during the campaign, GOP leaders suspect Democrats will use the commission to press them to denounce Trump and associate views widely held by grassroots conservatives with violent extremism.
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“A Jan. 6 commission is nothing more than a partisan political gimmick intended to further propagate the lie that Jan. 6 was an armed insurrection,” said conservative strategist Chris Barron. “Any Republican who goes along with this sham deserves to lose.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have consequently come out against the commission as envisioned by Democratic leaders. Some GOP lawmakers would be open to a commission that also studied recent left-wing political violence, such as rioting in response to the killing of George Floyd in police custody.
Some Republicans say the attack on the Capitol requires a bipartisan response and this inquiry would be a good place to start.
“Unfortunately many who rightly criticized and condemned the attack that day have walked back their words and softened their speech,” said Rep. Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican, in a statement supporting the commission’s creation.
Trump has continued to repeat his claims about the 2020 election, and GOP-led inquiries have proceeded in closely fought states such as Arizona, where Biden won narrowly. The former president has also remained a force inside the party and could launch a third bid for the White House in 2024.
A Morning Consult/Politico poll found Trump would be the overwhelming front-runner if he ran, taking 48% of the vote. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who certified the election results in his capacity as the presiding officer of the Senate and was present when the Capitol was attacked, is a distant second with 13%. No other prospective candidate breaks into the double digits, and 11 of the 15 candidates received less than 5%.
For those reasons, some Republicans argue it is necessary for the party to take an active role in contesting Trump’s claims about the election and rooting out sentiments common among those who breached the Capitol. But this view was tacitly rejected by most House Republicans when they tossed Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming out of the chairmanship of the conference. She only received 1% as a presidential possibility in the Morning Consult poll.
“The party is going to come back stronger, and I’m going to lead the effort to do it,” Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was quoted as saying before losing the vote. She has said she will do whatever it takes to stop Trump from ever being president again or remaining in a GOP leadership role.
But even some Republicans who agree with her about Trump believe what she is doing will backfire, making a 2024 run by the former reality TV star even more likely as he feels he needs to prove his continued control over the party.
“It’s a real dilemma leadership is going to have to handle gingerly,” said a Republican operative.
Some leading Republicans, including McCarthy, believe Trump can play a constructive role in turning out voters for GOP candidates in the midterm elections. At a minimum, they do not wish to antagonize him or his base. Republicans would like to replicate his margins and turnout with white working-class voters, which made Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan battleground states. They also note Trump won nearly one-third of Hispanics and 1 in 5 black men last year even as he fell to Biden.
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But McConnell has been more stern in his rebuke of Trump, and it was speculated he would support the ex-president’s second impeachment. (The Kentucky Republican ultimately did not, on procedural grounds, though he remained critical of Trump’s words and deeds during the riot.) His opposition to the commission signals that the party consensus would be a negative political development.
“I’ve made the decision to oppose the House Democrats’ slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of Jan. 6,” he said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
