What the Jan6 Committee Could have Been… 19 June 2022

    What the Jan. 6 Committee Might Have Been
    Victor Davis Hanson / June 17, 2022

    Congress should investigate fully the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol
and similar recent riots at iconic federal sites.
    But unfortunately, it never will. Why not?
    The current committee is not bipartisan. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., forbade Republican nominees traditionally selected
by the House minority leader to serve on the committee.
    No speaker had ever before rejected the minority party’s nominees
to a select House committee.
    Pelosi’s own cynical criteria for Republican participation was
twofold: any willing minority Republican members had to have voted to
impeach former President Donald Trump while having no realistic
chance of being reelected in 2022.
    Of some 210 Republican House members, that left just Reps. Liz
Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who were willing and able
to fit Pelosi’s profile.
    A real investigation would have ignited argumentation, cross-
examination, and disagreements—the sort of give-and-take for which
congressional committees are famous.
    In contrast, the Jan. 6 show trial features no dissenting views.
Its subtext was right out of Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria’s credo: “Show me the man and I’ll show
you the crime.”
    If Trump was not considering a third run for the presidency,
would the committee even have existed?
    Its slick Hollywood-produced optics demonstrate that the commit-
tee has no interest in inconvenient facts. Why did a Capitol officer
lethally shoot a petite unarmed woman entering a Capitol window? And
why was the officer’s identity and, indeed, all information about his
record withheld from the public?
    Why did the committee not investigate whether large numbers of
FBI agents and informants were ubiquitous among the crowd? After all,
progressive New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg who was there
on Jan. 6 claimed, “There were a ton of FBI informants amongst the
people who attacked the Capitol.”
    About his own journalistic colleagues advancing a psychodramatic
“insurrection” narrative, Rosenberg scoffed, “They were making too
big a deal. They were making [Jan. 6] some organized thing that it
wasn’t.”
    A real committee would also investigate why there were lots of
warnings that a large crowd would assemble, but apparently little
government follow-up to ensure security, should rogue elements turn
violent.
    A real committee would learn why the government and media insis-
ted that officer Brian Sicknick was killed by Trump supporters—even
when it was known he died of natural causes.
    None of the questions will be answered because none will be
asked because the committee’s role is not inquiry but confirmation
of a useful narrative.
    A real committee would also investigate the other, far larger
and more lethal riots on iconic federal property months earlier.
    On May 31, 2020, for example, violent demonstrators tried to
rush the White House grounds. Rioters sought to burn down the nearby
historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.
    D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser mysteriously did not send police to
reinforce overwhelmed Secret Service agents who, at moments, seemed
unable to keep the mob from the White House itself.
    The giddy New York Times later crowed, “Trump shrinks back.” Was
the Times preening that the president was a coward for retreating
from a righteous mob?
    As a precaution, the Secret Service removed the president and
first family to a safe underground bunker.
    Such riots near or at the White House continued for much of the
fall, before mysteriously tapering off in the last weeks before the
election.
    Less than three weeks after the violent Washington riot, Demo-
cratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris seemed to incite the
continuing violent protests, “They’re not going to stop … This is a
movement … they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we
should not.”
    Note that Harris’ cheerleading was joined by a host of prominent
left-wing luminaries who contextualized the violence. The 1619 Pro-
ject architect Nikole Hannah-Jones boasted, “Destroying property,
which can be replaced, is not violence.”
    Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pontificated, “And please, show me
where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”
    Note that the 2020 summer rioting, arson, and looting continued
for nearly four months. Its toll resulted in over 35 dead, some 1,500
police officers injured, around 14,000 arrests, and between $1-2 bil-
lion in property damage.
    The violence was often aimed at iconic government buildings,
from courthouses to police precincts. There were never any federal
investigations to determine why state, local, and federal officials
allowed the destruction to continue.
    Why were the vast majority of those arrested simply released by
authorities?
    And how had Antifa and Black Lives Matter radicals orchestrated
the violence using social media? What was the role of prominent elec-
ted officials in either condoning or encouraging the violence or com-
municating with the ring leaders?
    A truly bipartisan House select committee dedicated to ending
all violence directed at the White House, the Capitol, or federal
courthouses might have been useful in probing this dark period in
American history.

    And that is precisely why there was no such committee.
Victor D. Hanson from The Daily Signal

    If God is willing, America will see this fiasco for what it is
and these unlawful, evil people will receive what they are due for
the destruction of our great nation.
    The Constitution was written to keep the government in control
and the job of the elected officials is to ensure it is followed and
respected.

Conservatively,
John