US House to vote on new probe committee of deadly Capitol attack

The U.S. House of Representatives votes Wednesday on legislation to create a new select committee to probe the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, after Senate Republicans in May blocked an independent commission to probe the assault.

Hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the building that day in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election win. The violence left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

Democrats want the panel to probe “why Jan. 6 happened, who was responsible for Jan. 6 happening, and what can we do to prevent a Jan. 6 insurrection from happening again?” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said.

Republicans have not said whether they will participate, but their leaders recommended voting against creation of the committee, saying it was likely to pursue a partisan agenda. Republicans already have blocked an outside commission whose members would have been evenly divided between the political parties – unlike the current proposal, which gives Democrats a clear 8-5 advantage.

The sun rises on the U.S. Capitol dome before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

Republicans have argued that existing committee probes as well as prosecutors’ investigations make an outside commission or a select committee unnecessary. More than 500 people have been charged with taking part in the violence.

The select committee proposal puts Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi squarely in charge. It calls for her to appoint the panel’s chairman and all 13 members, although five members would be selected by the speaker “after consultation with” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.

This suggests Pelosi could block a Republican attempt to name someone like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of Trump who told CNN she would like to be chosen.

The panel would have subpoena power, presumably allowing it to call Trump as a witness, said Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security think tank. However, “they’ll have to make decisions about whether they want to engage in litigation over subpoenas,” she said.

An aide said Pelosi was considering a Republican among her appointees. Thirty-five House Republicans voted for a commission in May, and some of them have criticized Trump over the attack on the Capitol.

But Representative John Katko, a Republican who helped broker the bipartisan commission proposal that was blocked in the Senate, denounced Pelosi’s select committee plan as “a turbocharged partisan exercise.”

The resolution gives no deadline for finishing, meaning it could spill over into next year, when 2022 midterm elections will determine control of Congress.

A previous House select committee on the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was derided by Democrats as a political vendetta against Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The report by the Republican-dominated panel, which appeared during Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, said the State Department had failed to protect four Americans killed in that attack.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)