Why Killing the January 6 Commission was the Right Move

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last Friday, Senate Republicans successfully blocked the establishment of the January 6 commission, which would have been a 9/11-style commission whose primary intent was, according to a fact sheet released by the House Committee on Homeland Security, “investigating and reporting upon the facts and causes of the January 6 attack on the Capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy”.

The commission’s demise amid a GOP filibuster was largely anticipated. A minimum of 10 Republican votes in its favor would have been required to override it – it only received six.

Upon the failure of the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) opportunistically made the claim that “the Republican minority just prevented the American people from getting the full truth about January 6”, and that its basis was solely “out of fear – or fealty – to Donald Trump”.

Schumer added: “this vote has made it official. Donald Trump’s Big Lie has now fully enveloped the Republican party. Trump’s Big Lie is now the defining principle of what was once the party of Lincoln.”

This sentiment – despite being entirely devoid of substance – is poignant, as it outlines dire logistical issues with a proposed commission that would be almost completely unproductive in accomplishing what congressional investigations are meant to accomplish.

"Schumer added: “this vote has made it official. Donald Trump’s Big Lie has now fully enveloped the Republican party. Trump’s Big Lie is now the defining principle of what was once the party of Lincoln.”"

Of course, Schumer is lying; it's what Democrats do. Rejecting this bogus commission is in no way equivalent to agreeing with Trump that the election was stolen. It is to say that we basically know what happened on January 6th and why it happened, and the only things that we don't know (e.g., who killed Ashli Babbitt and why were no charges filed) will be declared off limits.

The demonstration occurred because millions of people - including Donald Trump - believed that there were very suspicious circumstances surrounding the 2020 election, and that their evidence never got a fair hearing in the courts or in Congress.

Thus a massive crowd assembled, of which a small segment became violent, fought with police, and breached the Capitol. (It should go without saying that violence - including violence against police and public buildings - was a recurrent feature of the BLM demonstrations that dominated the summer of 2020, and which continue to this day.)

After a few hours, order was restored and the Senate resumed its business. There is no need whatsoever to rehash all of that, waste time and money, merely for another round of shabby political theatre which the Dems are embarrassingly bad at.

"This is not to say that there is no legitimacy in forming a commission to investigate the failures on behalf of legislative and executive forces that allowed the national embarrassment that was January 6 to happen – but it is abundantly clear that this investigation has, from the beginning, had almost nothing to do with that and almost everything to do with Democrats using their current political leverage to appoint as many people as they can to draft a report that effectively serves as an official condemnation the Republican Party writ large.

Spot on. The only thing that needs investigating is the security failures that allowed the riot to happen, but that is NOT what the commission is about. It is SOLELY intended to be a massive indictment of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and Trump supporters, to make them complicit in the violent acts of a few.

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