US House votes to create commission on Capitol riot
The US House voted Wednesday to establish a bipartisan commission to research January's deadly riot at the US Capitol, overcoming tensions for the present time amid rising Republican hostility to an independent fact-finding panel.
One day after top House Republican Kevin McCarthy came out against the commission, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also expressed opposition, raising hurdles to Senate passage a lot more than four weeks after the violence.
However the House of Representatives at least temporarily weathered a brewing storm, voting 252 to 175 to approve legislation that establishes a 10-member panel commission.
Thirty-five Republicans bucked their party's leadership and joined Democrats in supporting your time and effort.
"This commission is built to work, and it will be depoliticized, and it will get the outcomes we are in need of," House Republican John Katko, who caused Democrats to craft a good offer on the commission, told his co-workers on the floor.
"I urge all of you in the body, everyone on both sides... to set aside politics simply this once - simply this once."
In January McConnell blamed Donald Trump for inciting violence at the Capitol, that was overrun by the then-president's supporters seeking to block recognition of the election earned by Joe Biden.
This week McConnell said he remained available to supporting a commission if changes were designed to its structure, but by Wednesday he hardened his opposition.
"After consideration, I've determined to oppose the House Democrats' slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to review the events of January the 6th," McConnell said.
He pointed to ongoing police investigations that have already resulted found in more than 400 arrests, and said a fresh panel may cause unnecessary overlap.
The legislation that could create a commission evenly split between five members chosen by Democrats and five chosen by Republicans. Each side would have equal subpoena power.
But McConnell's opposition, approaching a day time after Trump urged Republicans to oppose it, complicates passage in the Senate.
The chamber is divided 50-50, but at least 10 Republicans would need to join Democrats for the measure to be law.
"It sounds like they (Republicans) are afraid of the truth, and that is most unfortunate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, told reporters.
While McCarthy slammed Pelosi's strategies for the panel, Pelosi herself said she yielded to several Republican demands including a 50-50 commission split.
Some Republicans critical of the panel said it would merely serve as a vehicle to attack Trump.
Democrats will "utilize this to smear Trump supporters and president Trump for another couple of years," warned controversial House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who offers peddled Trump's baseless claim that the presidential election was first stolen from him.
Additional Republicans say they might just like broader scope to permit investigation into previous year's violence at Black Lives Matter protests, but Pelosi refused.
She said the panel will be like the high-account 9/11 commission created in 2002.
That body's two chairs, former New Jersey governor Tom Kean and ex-congressman Lee Hamilton, have endorsed a January 6 commission.
"As we did in the wake of September 11, it is time to set aside partisan politics and get together as Americans in keeping pursuit of fact and justice," the match said in a statement Wednesday. -- AFP
