Pelosi Forms House Panel to Investigate Capitol Riot

WASHINGTON (CN) — After a bill to create a bipartisan investigative committee failed in the Senate last month, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday the creation of a select committee to study the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“It is imperative that we establish the truth of that day and ensure that an attack of that kind cannot happen and that we root out the causes of it all,” Pelosi told reporters. “The select committee will investigate and report on the facts and the causes of the attack and it will report recommendations for the prevention of any future attack.”

The Senate voted 54-35 in late May to move ahead with creating a bipartisan commission with co-equal subpoena power and membership, but the measure fell six votes short of clearing a filibuster-proof majority needed for final passage.

Pelosi said during her weekly press conference Thursday that for the past four weeks, outside groups have tried to persuade Senate lawmakers to vote again on the commission, to no avail.

“I asked leading up to today, ‘Is there a chance for it to pass? You gave it so much time,’” Pelosi said. “’Not soon; not likely; maybe someday.’”   

In response to that lack of commitment from senators, Pelosi said the House will form its own select committee in the hopes it eventually becomes complimentary to a bipartisan panel created by the Senate.

There is no set timeline for the House committee to present its findings, Pelosi said, but it will examine several issues while investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. It will look at what drove supporters of then-President Donald Trump to storm Capitol Hill and occupy the seat of the federal government for more than six hours, and will also focus on how extremist ideologies infected those rioters.

“The white supremacy, the anti-Semitism, the Islamophobia, all the rest of it that was so evident when you see a sweatshirt on one of the people saying, ‘Camp Auschwitz,’” Pelosi said. “The other is the security of the Capitol and what it means to be ready for such an insurrection.”

She added: “While I think we could have been better prepared, I don’t think anybody would have foreseen an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”

Pelosi dismissed the suggestion that a select committee’s findings would be seen as political, but acknowledged the preferable option would have been having an outside commission on the attack. She said House lawmakers do not intend to walk away from the responsibility of investigating an attack on the symbol of American democracy — the U.S. Capitol.

The House speak briefly recited the history of the Capitol's dome, noting former President Abraham Lincoln urged workers to complete its construction during the Civil War because it would serve as a symbol of strength “to see through the darkness.”

She said it is essentially to bring light to what catalyzed the Jan. 6 attack, one of the darkest days in the country’s history.

“On Jan. 6 and the days, weeks and months after, the Capitol dome has been and is once again a beacon of hope as President Lincoln intended,” Pelosi said.

Follow Jack Rodgers on Twitter

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit