Republicans Defy Kevin Mccarthy And Gop Leadership To Vote With All Democrats In Favor Of Forming A 9/11
- The House passed a bill that would create a commission to investigate the January 6 MAGA riot, with a vote of 252-175
- Thirty-five Republicans defected from leadership and voted in favor of the bill that would create a bipartisan commission with subpoena power
- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out against the bill Tuesday, followed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday;
- ‘I beg you to pass this bill,’ said Republican Rep. John Katko, who had negotiated with Democrats to get the bill finished;
- Katko received applause on the House floor for saying the legislation was dedicated to members of the Capitol Police and their families;
- Earlier, an un-official letter from some members of the Capitol Police circulated shaming Republicans for not wanting to investigate January 6;;
‘it’s Time To End This Forever War’ Biden Says Forces To Leave Afghanistan By 9/11
The enormous national anger generated by those attacks was also channeled by the administration toward the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was conceived to prevent any recurrence of attacks on such a massive scale. Arguments over that legislation consumed Congress through much of 2002 and became the fodder for campaign ads in that year’s midterms.
The same anger was also directed toward a resolution to use force, if needed, in dealing with security threats from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That authorization passed Congress with bipartisan majorities in the fall of 2002, driven by administration claims that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction.” It became law weeks before the midterm elections.
Once those elections were over, the Republicans in control of both chambers finally agreed to create an independent commission to seek answers about 9/11. Bush signed the legislation on Nov. 27, 2002.
The beginning was hobbled when the first chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, decided not to continue. But a new chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, filled the breach and performed to generally laudatory reviews.
Long memories
Senate Republicans Vote To Stop January 6 Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot Despite Six Gop Rebels Supporting Probe
- 12:33 ET, May 28 2021
- Invalid Date,
SENATE Republicans voted to stop the January 6 commission bill to investigate the Capitol riot despite six GOP rebels supporting the probe.
The Senate vote was 54-35 short of the 60 votes needed to consider a House-passed bill that would have formed a 10-member commission evenly split between the two parties.
The vote was another sign of GOP loyalty to former President Donald Trump.
Though the commission bill passed the House earlier this month with the support of almost three dozen Republicans, GOP senators said they believe the commission would eventually be used against them politically.
Trump, whose supporters stormed the Capitol building earlier this year, has called it a “Democrat trap.”
The vote demonstrates the disagreements between the two parties since the siege, especially among Republicans, as some in the party have downplayed the violence and defended the rioters who supported Trump and his false insistence that the election was stolen from him.
The attack was the worst on the Capitol in 200 years and interrupted the certification of Democrat Joe Bidens win over Trump.
Four people died in the riot, and a police officer collapsed and died afterward of what authorities said were natural causes.
Two police officers took their own lives in the days after the riots.
Following the vote, House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said “shame on the Republican party.”
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Who Are The Republicans Who Voted For The January 6 Commission
The 35 defectors represented a relatively modest but significant slice of House Republicans.
All 10 Republicans who voted in January to impeach Donald Trump for encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol supported the commission.
Most of the 35 Republicans backing the commission were moderates.
New York Representative John Katko, a Republican, wrote the measure with Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi.
I encourage all members, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put down their swords for once, just for once, and support this bill,” Katko said before the House approved the measure.
Outspoken Trump critic Liz Cheney, who was ousted from her House leadership position, was one of the 35 Republicans to vote yes and urged the Senate to approve the commission.
Some things must be above politics,” she tweeted.
Top House Republican Opposes Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot
But McCarthy replied by opposing Katko’s product, and more than 80% of the other House Republicans did too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially said he was keeping an open mind but then announced that he too was opposed. This makes it highly unlikely that 10 of McConnell’s GOP colleagues will be willing to add their votes to the Democrats’ and defeat a filibuster of the bill.
Republicans have argued that two Senate committees are already looking at the events of Jan. 6, as House panels have done as well. The Justice Department is pursuing cases against hundreds of individuals who were involved. Former President Donald Trump and others have said any commission ought to also be tasked to look at street protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.
But with all that on the table, several Republicans have alluded to their concern about a new commission “dragging on” into 2022, the year of the next midterm elections. “A lot of our members … want to be moving forward,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican toMcConnell. “Anything that gets us rehashing to 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.”
Resistance even after 9/11
The Taliban were toppled but bin Laden escaped, and U.S. forces have been engaged there ever since. The troop numbers have declined in recent years, and President Biden has indicated that all combat troops will be out by this year’s anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
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Hanie Bice’s Path Reveals Opportunities Perils For Suburban Republicans
EDMUND, Okla. As the Oklahoma Republican Party verged on implosion this summer, GOP Rep. Stephanie Bice donned a hard hat and toured a vocational-technical school under construction here in her district.
The facility was state-of-the-art, with modern furniture so new it was still encased in plastic and with glass-walled conference rooms where future students would, a guide explained, learn creative problem-solving through human-centered design.
Within a few days, forces in the state GOP loyal to former President Donald Trump would attempt to censure the states two senators Republicans James M. Inhofe and James Lankford for voting to certify the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.;
Bice, who unseated Democrat Kendra Horn in the Oklahoma City-anchored 5th District last fall, had not weighed in publicly. Since winning her swing seat, she has shunned the Twitter wars and internal party disputes that have catapulted some of her colleagues in the Republican freshman class to Fox News fame.;
Instead, she has favored low-key, sound bite-free appearances like this visit to the vo-tech school, where she assured local education leaders at a follow-up discussion that she was focused on workforce development.
I am a reasonable, conservative Republican, Bice said in an interview.;
House Votes To Establish Committee To Investigate Jan 6 Capitol Riot
WASHINGTON The House voted Wednesday to establish a select committee to investigate the , the only step needed to formalize the panel’s creation.
The House voted 222 to 190, with two Republicans joining all present Democrats in authorizing the committee.
Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the only Republicans to vote in favor of the committee.
“It’s not my favored option,” Kinzinger told Chicago-based television station Fox 32. “But the point is, we can’t keep pretending like Jan. 6 didn’t happen. We need full accounting for it and then we can move on.”
This month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the panel as “complementary, not instead of” the bipartisan commission that already passed in the House and then was blocked by Senate Republicans in May.
The earlier legislation, which would have established a bipartisan panel to examine the attack, failed a key procedural hurdle after 54 senators voted in favor, falling short of the 60 votes needed. There has been no progress in convincing enough Republican senators to support the bill and end a filibuster.
“It’s a second-best option. I would have strongly preferred the first bill that we voted on, which would have stood up a 9/11-style commission,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said Wednesday. “We can’t just sweep everything under the rug. So it’s important because the American people need to have a clear understanding of what happened on that day so it doesn’t happen again.”
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Republicans Poised To Block Creation Of Jan 6 Commission
Republicans point to ongoing congressional probes of the Capitol riot as enough.
Battle in Senate for Jan. 6 commission
Senate Republicans are poised to quash an effort Thursday to establish a bipartisan, independent commission to study the on the U.S. Capitol that that left five people dead.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his opposition last week — along with his House GOP counterpart, Kevin McCarthy — ahead of the House vote approving the measure with 35 Republicans joining Democrats. The high-profile GOP move has provided political cover for most Republicans in both chambers to reject the legislation.
“I do not believe the additional, extraneous commission that Democratic leaders want would uncover crucial new facts, or promote healing,” McConnell said Thurday on the Senate floor. “Frankly, I do not believe it is even designed to do that.”
McConnell, McCarthy and most rank-and-file Republicans have said they fear Democrats will try to make political hay out of a commission, dragging out any findings into the crucial 2022 midterm election year, when control of both chambers is at stake.
But Democrats counter that the real reason is that Republicans are too beholden to former President Donald Trump, who was impeached for inciting the mob that ransacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election and who continues to claim, falsely, that the election was stolen.
The Six Republican Senators Who Voted For A January 6 Commission
Six Republican senators voted in favor of creating a bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly Capitol riot on January 6.
The Senate voted 54 to 35 in favor of advancing the commission but the majority failed to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster, effectively sinking the commission.
Forty-eight Democrats and six Republicans voted in favor. There were eleven senators who did not vote, including two Democrats.
Those Republicans who voted in favor were: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
Of these six senators, all but one voted to convict former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial earlier this year.
Portman voted to acquit Trump on February 13 but backed advancing the commission on Friday.
Murkowski had been outspoken in her support for the commission and criticized her own party’s opposition to it, saying the GOP was “making a decision for the short-term political gain at the expense of understanding and acknowledging what was in front of us on January 6.”
“Truth is hard stuff, but we’ve got a responsibility to it,” Murkowski said.
“I don’t believe that’s what’s the motivation but I think that’s the perception,” he said.
Newsweek has contacted the six senators’ offices for comment.
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Republicans Explain Why They Voted For Jan 6 Commission
Thirty-five Republicans joined with Democrats on May 19 to vote for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach. See the full list below.
GOP members who voted for the commission largely said they did so because they wanted to make sure another riot like the one that took place did not happen again.
Like many Americans, I was appalled by what took place on January 6th when a mob broke down windows and doors, assaulted police officers, and threatened our very democracy, Rep. David Valadao said in a statement. An independent commission, similar to the 9/11-style review, is needed to remove politicization and shed light on what led to the attack and how members of Congress, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement officials can ensure this never happens again.
No Republicans spoke in favor of the bill on the House floor on Wednesday save for Rep. John Katko , who was its co-sponsor along with Rep. Bennie Thompson , and Rep. Fred Upton .
Upton said members still lack answers to basic questions about the attack on the Capitol and believes the bipartisan commission will find answers.
Katko told members the commission is about finding the truth and addressing the vulnerabilities of our security apparatus so that we can emerge stronger and better prepared.
Katko praised Capitol Police officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, and Washington officer Justin Smith, who died after the attack by natural causes or suicide.
House Passes Bill To Investigate Capitol Riot But Its Fate In Senate Is Unclear
Others, such as Senate Minority Whip John Thune, had voiced concern about a commission distracting from the party’s message heading into the 2022 midterm elections. “A lot of our members … want to be moving forward,” the South Dakota Republican told CNN last week. “Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.”
Former President Donald Trump has been another vocal critic and has attacked the effort to create the panel as a “Democrat trap.” Had the commission moved forward, Trump likely would have been called to testify over his role in inciting the insurrection and his administration’s response to the attack.
In remarks on the Senate floor after the vote, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the outcome this way: “ut of fear of or fealty to Donald Trump, the Republican minority just prevented the American people from getting the full truth about Jan. 6.” He added: “Shame on the Republican Party for trying to sweep the horrors of that day under the rug because they’re afraid of Donald Trump.”
Biden supported the commission. Speaking to reporters Friday, White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Republican senators swear “an oath to support and defend the Constitution. And today, unfortunately, they failed to do that.”
The lack of sufficient GOP support came despite a last-minute push by Maine’s Susan Collins, one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, to rally support within the GOP caucus.
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Some Senators Didn’t Have An Answer For What They Would Need To See In Order To Vote For The Measure
Republican senators on Friday drowned the hopes of an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, gathering enough members of their own conference to block legislation to establish the panel.
Though it received overall majority support in the chamber, the procedural vote, a cloture vote on a motion to proceed, to the legislation fell short of the 60 votes needed, 54-35. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Rob Portman of Ohio were the only Republicans who voted to end debate on whether to take up the legislation.
The vote, which had been expected on Thursday, was delayed after some Republican senators, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, consumed floor time that brought the chamber to a painfully slow cadence and culminated at around 3 a.m. Friday morning.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said he struck an agreement that ensured the commission vote would happen in the light of day and not in the early morning hours.
On Thursday, the family and colleagues of a Capitol Police officer who died shortly after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 met with several GOP senators to try to convince them to vote for the commission.
Gladys Sicknick met with Johnson Thursday morning and said GOP opposition to the commission is a slap in the face to officers because they put their lives on the line.
Second Impeachment Of Donald Trump
A few days after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the US House of Representatives filed one article of impeachment against Donald Trump, “incitement of insurrection”. At the Senate impeachment trial on February 13, Trump was acquitted, the required two-thirds majority not being met.
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Staying Above The Fray
As autumn approaches, the pressure on Bice from within her party appears to be lifting. Oklahoma GOP leaders have said nothing about her since party Chairman John Bennett posted a rebuke on Facebook in May following her Jan. 6 commission vote. Bennetts post is now blocked from public view, and he did not respond to a request for an interview.
Bice, who voted in January to oppose certification of the presidential result in Arizona, has repeatedly given the same explanation for her stance;on both the 2020 presidential election and the Capitol riot, positions she reiterated in an interview with CQ Roll Call.;
She said she wanted to make a statement about the integrity of state lawmakers control over how elections are administered, noting a 2020 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed voters to cast absentee ballots without getting them notarized.
Voting rights advocates said the measure would protect voters during the coronavirus pandemic, but state Republican lawmakers called the decision judicial overreach and rushed a party-line bill through the Legislature restoring the requirement.;
Oklahoma could have become a statistic like other states that had their election laws changed by judicial or executive decree, Bice said. For me, that was something that was very troubling.
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