The Problem with the January 6th Committee

Eric Medlin

History instructor. Writer. Rising star in the world of affordable housing.

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10 Responses

  1. Philip H says:

    Chairman Thompson is a Black Democrat in a very red state. Tenacious is a good word for him. Bulldog is as well. Speaker Pelosi put him in charge for a reason. He will refer people for charges no matter who they are. And if there is overwhelming evidence of wrong doing by a member, he may well introduce article of expulsion early next year. Just in time for campaign season . . .

    Democrats have not yet introduced major reform legislation on tax returns or ethics conduct because they are frying larger fish – especially on voting rights and infrastructure. Its a gamble, but if the vote in the states is not protected and significant investments in our physical stability – which increase economic stability – are not made, then frankly whether tax returns are released will be a moot point. Plus Biden released his.

    Democrats also promised to rewrite ethics laws so that they had enforcement mechanisms behind them, and so presidential advisors like Kellyanne Conway could not ignore them with impunity.

    from inside the bureaucracy, I note that the laws Ms. Conway ignored have plenty of teeth, and are routinely used by other administrations to sanction both career and political appointee civil servants. The law wasn’t toothless – the Trump Administration simply ignored it because they controlled all the levers of enforcement. That’s not something that can be changed by statute, unless you want the Capitol Police to suddenly have jurisdiction over Executive Branch political appointees, which would open a whole other can of worms.Report

  2. Chip Daniels says:

    We also keep coming back to the fact that some very large percentage of Americans support the idea behind the coup which is that they themselves are the only legitimate holders of power and any means to hold on to it are justified.Report

  3. John Puccio says:

    Didn’t we already watch this political theater staged earlier this year as Impeachment #2?

    “Meanwhile, nearly every Republican refused to serve on the committee or seriously engage with its goals.”

    The goals are politically motivated and the 2 republicans who would have raised questions about the FBI’s involvement were denied by Pelosi.

    I don’t know how you see this is as anything more than a political side show intended to distract public attention away from this country’s real problems. Mid terms are coming and the DNC is going to get slaughtered. Time to bring back the Orange Man!Report

    • Philip H in reply to John Puccio says:

      Republicans nominated 5 people. Three were people pelosi would work with; Jim Jordan was one of the other two. Pelosi said “these three not those two” and McCarthy grabbed his toys, jumped out of the sandbox and ran away screaming about how he was being kept out of the sandbox. Then Pelosi added two Republicans still in touch with reality and the committee started working.

      That aside – the committee is looking at everyone and every thing. Impeachment by its nature could ONLY look at the President. And given over 600 Americans charged, and many either pleading guilt or being convicted I’d say a Committee investigation was and is warranted.Report

      • John Puccio in reply to Philip H says:

        “the committee is looking at everyone and every thing”

        Oh please. You may be partisan – nothing wrong with that – but surely you can admit they are only looking at everything and everything that is politically expedient.Report

        • Philip H in reply to John Puccio says:

          They are looki by at an attack on the US capitol carried out by one group of people who soli there’s off a larger rally conducted by one political party that was engaged in trying to lie about the election being stolen. Questions about the FBIs involvement in that investigation are certain to be on the table if they are relevant. I have not seen any reporting saying they are. Because the FBI didn’t attack the capitol.Report

          • John Puccio in reply to Philip H says:

            When was the last time a congressional investigation was interested in finding the truth?

            What are the “congressional investigators” going to discover that the DOJ couldn’t?Report

            • Philip H in reply to John Puccio says:

              The DOJ is properly investigating, arresting and prosecuting the people who actually attacked the capitol. The Congressional Select Committee is properly investigating the overarching conditions – political, economic, security, etc – that existed around the attack. Each has a role and each is fulfilling that role. And the Select Committee can and likely will work much more quickly then DoJ, which is slowed in no small part by all the other things it has to investigate and prosecute under hundreds of federal statutes.

              As to Congressional investigations and truth telling – it happens quite regularly. The Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee exhaustively investigated Russian interferences in the 2016 election and found that, indeed, Russian state actors had used a variety of mechanisms to attempt to interfere in the election to sway people to vote for one particular candidate. Their findings matched those of the professional intelligence community. Even the House Select Committee on Benghazi reached truthful conclusions when it found that the worst thing Secretary Clinton and the State Department could be faulted for was bad decisions regarding messaging (do remember that Chairman Gowdy referred no one for prosecution after that investigation). Lack of reaching a conclusion you like doesn’t mean they were untruthful.Report

  4. Philip H says:

    Note that Steve Bannon was indicted today for criminal contempt for failing to answer the House subpoena. And in less then 30 days. While this fight is along way from over, the DoJ is clearly signaling to others it intends to enforce Congress’s subpoena powers. Which also means the Trump executive privilege claims are now on even shakier ground then they used to be.Report