It’s worth thinking through what purposes a commission would serve.
Senate Republicans today blocked an independent, bipartisan commission to inquire into the January 6 Capitol riot. This will not prevent Congress from conducting its own investigation, but it will be an openly partisan probe rather than one that offers the appearance — and maybe the reality, depending who you ask — of fairness and balance. It’s worth thinking through what purposes a commission would serve.
On the one hand, we do not need a commission to publicize the events of January 6. We do not need a commission to draw conclusions about public events (such as the actions of Donald Trump that were already the subject of a Senate impeachment trial) that contributed to the riot. As I discussed yesterday with regard to an investigation of the origins of COVID-19 and what exactly the U.S. government was funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, there is a common misperception, particularly among media liberals, that we should design investigations for the purposes of declaring authoritative “expert” conclusions rather than unearthing facts. A bipartisan commission’s opinions may carry weight, but they are still opinions, not scientific facts.
The partisan aims of the Democrats are obvious. Dislike of Trump is how the tepid, aged Joe Biden managed 81 million votes. The entire setting of Trump’s months-long temper tantrum over the election was a huge gift to Democrats in keeping voters in their camp who may not be sold on the actual Democratic governing agenda, and was crucial to winning them control of the Senate on January 5. Ensuring that the midterm elections are about Trump is really the only path the Democrats have to avoiding the customary midterm woes that would (even with a sub-par Republican performance) hand both houses of Congress back to Republicans. In purely partisan terms, Republicans are better off taking the hit for a few days of killing a commission than they are in empowering one.
We also do not need a commission or a congressional investigation of the culpability of the actual rioters. Many of them are being criminally prosecuted, and rightfully so. In order to deter any repetition in the future, everyone involved should be prosecuted to the maximum possible extent under the law, and face the maximum possible penalties. Fear of assaults on the chamber of the national legislature was one of the reasons why we had a Constitutional Convention in 1787, and why they wrote into the document a capital district under federal control.
There are, however, multiple things on which the public is not yet fully informed about the riot, which would be proper subjects for a public, noncriminal inquiry, including:
- Whether members of Congress, their staff, or other Capitol staff had any role in advance in planning for the protestors to gain access to the Capitol that day.
- The performance of the Capitol Police in allowing the building to be overrun, including apparent instances of voluntarily admitting the protestors. If some of them were led to believe that they were lawfully admitted, that is an issue in criminal cases (one that is being raised) — but why would the Capitol Police, individually or institutionally, give anyone that impression?
- The timeline of how and why the National Guard was delayed in responding to the scene, including whether the president delayed in ordering their deployment (a point that was thrown around during the impeachment trial, but which House Democrats never seriously tried to investigate before impeaching).
These are questions that may well implicate the actions of Trump, and not only Trump but also House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy. Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy argued in favor of a commission that a partisan inquiry by Democrats cannot be trusted to look into Pelosi’s role regarding the Capitol Police. Unlike generalized finger-pointing about “Stop the Steal” rhetoric, on which nobody’s mind will be changed, these are entirely proper subjects for investigation. Republicans have now ensured that they will be conducted in the most partisan way possible.