Finally, after six months, fortresslike fencing around the Capitol will come down, House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker announced this week.
Since early January, the 8-foot nonscaleable wall has encompassed the Capitol, closing off the building and expansive grounds to all but lawmakers, staff, and credentialed media. It was swiftly erected after hundreds of angry rioters pushed their way inside the building days earlier, threatening staff and lawmakers who were at work certifying the election of Joe Biden.
The fencing will likely be gone by next week, but the partisan battle over Jan. 6 is just beginning.
The House voted earlier this month to create a special committee to investigate the cause of the riot and the security gaps that allowed the rioters to overwhelm police quickly and gain access to the Capitol.
The resolution to create the committee mainly passed along party lines: Republicans Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois were the only two GOP lawmakers who voted in favor of it.
Most Republicans are wary of Democrats leading a congressional investigation into the riot. They feel confident, based on the claims of Democratic lawmakers, that it will focus on accusations that President Donald Trump incited the attack and that some GOP lawmakers helped him, even by facilitating the Capitol access for the violent invaders.
Democrats will control eight committee seats and Republicans only five.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stirred up anger among Republicans by appointing Cheney to one of her party’s eight seats. Cheney is one of the GOP’s staunchest and most prominent Trump opponents and voted to impeach him on the charge of inciting the riot. Her presence on the panel guarantees a spotlight on a GOP Trump critic who, at the same time, will lend bipartisan legitimacy to an otherwise one-sided panel.
“Many of my colleagues see this as mostly if not entirely political theater by the speaker, and I think that’s the frustration,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told the Hill.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hasn’t signaled to anyone who he might appoint to fill the five GOP spots on the panel. Instead, he accused Pelosi of “playing political games” with the panel after she appointed Cheney.
McCarthy’s decision is critical.
The committee’s work has no deadline and could drag into the crucial midterm elections when Republicans believe they have a reasonable chance of regaining the majority from the Democrats. The panel could end up releasing politically adverse findings that attempt to tie the GOP to the rioters or to blame Trump, who is expected to help elect Republicans to the House and Senate.
One top Republican aide said lawmakers are divided on who should sit on the committee.
“There are two camps,” the aide told the Washington Examiner. “One is the ‘blow it up camp,’ who just want to make it a show. And you also have a camp that wants to be very, very serious about it. I think you have to meet in the middle somehow.”
Pelosi, a California Democrat, appointed Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson to run the panel. The Mississippian is known for bipartisanship rather than partisan politics.
But Pelosi added to the roster three lawmakers who served as former managers of the two impeachment cases against Trump. Among them is Adam Schiff of California, who spent years claiming to have evidence Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 elections and has continued an anti-Trump crusade. The other two, Maryland’s Jamie Raskin and Colorado’s Jason Crow, carried out the Senate trial accusing Trump of inciting the riot.
Schiff said the committee would investigate the role both Trump and GOP members played in inciting the riot or facilitating the attack. “These are just the kinds of questions we want to answer,” Schiff told MSNBC.
The committee hasn’t announced a meeting yet, and lawmakers are still awaiting word from McCarthy about his picks for the panel. Pelosi gave herself veto authority over his selection after Democrats warned against seating any of the 147 Republicans who cited election irregularities and voted against certifying Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.
Thompson was among 31 Democrats who objected to President George W. Bush’s 2004 election to a second term. The group cited election irregularities. Raskin objected to the certification of Trump’s 2016 victory for the same reason.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, panel member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Florida Democrat, said the committee would “start with having law enforcement officers testify to share their experiences that day.” Still, added lawmakers could also be summoned, including McCarthy, who called Trump as the riot ensued and asked him to call off the protesters.
“I think that members of Congress should be and will be probably called to testify under oath about their different perspectives on that day,” Murphy said.
