On Sunday, the elderly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has the “option” of forming a special committee to investigate the January 6th US Capitol breach.
Last month, the House passed a bill to create a commission to investigate the events surrounding January 6th. However, the Senate ended up blocking the bill, citing the DOJ’s current investigations are sufficient enough. Other Republicans mentioned their concern over Congressional investigations being politicized and/or politically motivated.
Pelosi has said she is working with Senators, in an attempt to sway their vote in favor of such a bill. Speaking on CNN’s “State Of The Union,” Pelosi said, “A week ago, I was asked to give it another week. So I will see by Monday if the Senate believes that they could—those who are working the bipartisan way can get three more votes.”
Pelosi continued saying, “It would have been 57 if everyone were present voting. Three more. I have yielded on every point, except scope, except scope. A number of people on the committee, subpoena power, timetable, you name it, we have yielded because of the value of the bipartisanship that would spring from that.”
She added, “But I would not—they want to say, well, if we’re going to investigate that, we should investigate Black Lives Matter and people who turned out after George Floyd was shot. No, that’s not what this—this is about an assault on our democracy, on our Capitol of the United States. The American people deserve and must have answers. We will seek the truth. We will find the truth. But we hope that we can do it with passing the commission.”
When asked if Pelosi would move forward with the formation of a spcial committee, if no agreements could be met with the Senate Pelosi said, “It’s an option. And everybody knows the power of the speaker to do that. So I would hope that that would motivate them to say, let’s go a different place.”
Senator Roy Blunt is a GOP member who opposed Pelosi’s bill said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” We’re going to have a pretty extensive report on what happened, over a hundred-page report with a significant number of recommendations, in my view, all of which could be put in place immediately. And my sense was it’s more important to act and get—and do what we know we need to do than to get in a position where we start waiting for a commission to come forth with a report that we, I think, are going to be happy—I think you’re going to be really pleased with the report you see. And we’ll see then where we need to go next after that report’s out.”
