The committee will include 13 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi submitted a draft resolution to the House late Monday that would establish a committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The committee would investigate the circumstances leading up to the attack, reviewing the causes of it, and issue a final report to the House summarizing its conclusions and any recommendations deemed necessary.
The resolution cites a bulletin from the National Terrorism Advisory System that states “some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.”
“DHS is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021,” the bulletin states, adding that some domestic violent extremists could be emboldened to target government officials and facilities.
The committee will be comprised of 13 House members, including five chosen in consultation with Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. A Pelosi aide later stated that she’s seriously considering a Republican as one of her eight nominees.
The resolution comes a month after the House passed H.R. 3233, a bill introduced by U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, and U.S. Representative John Katko, a New York Republican, to create an independent commission to study the insurrection. It faced stark Republican opposition and narrowly passed in the House with a 252-175 vote — 35 Republicans voted in favor of the bill — but was blocked in the Senate.
“Senate Republicans did Mitch McConnell a ‘personal favor’ rather than their patriotic duty and voted against the bipartisan commission negotiated by Democrats and Republicans,” Pelosi said in a statement. “But Democrats are determined to find the truth.”
The resolution will be considered on the House floor on Tuesday, with a debate expected Wednesday.
House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern urged fellow members of Congress to pass the resolution in a committee meeting on Monday. “Make no mistake — we will get to the bottom of what happened,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement. “This is what we owe to the staff here, to the police that risked their lies defending all of us — especially those who lost their lives — and to those who were injured, like officer Michael Fanone. And we owe it to the American people.”
Some House Republicans, however, still oppose the move to establish a Jan. 6 commission. Katko, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, rebuked the resolution for being “skewed."
“It would be a turbo-charged partisan exercise, not an honest fact-finding body that the American people and Capitol Police deserve,” the Katko said in a statement. “Recognizing the deeply disappointing departure this represents from a truly bipartisan solution, I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where I would participate, if asked.”
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