OPINION:
Americans deserve to know what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The chances they will find out from the work of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s biased congressional committee, though, are slimmer than the Democrats’ House majority. The unabridged story will not be told unless the speaker and other officials responsible for congressional security unbosom their own roles in the events surrounding a protest of the bizarre 2020 election that ended Donald Trump’s presidency.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol began its probe on Tuesday, providing an opportunity for Chairman Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat, to elicit eye-witness accounts of the riot from brave members of the Capitol Police. His preface was unobjectionable: “We will do our job now to ensure the peaceful transfer of power remains a pillar of our democracy. We cannot allow ourselves to be undone by liars and cheaters. This is the United States of America.” Indeed.
It is the makeup of the speaker’s handpicked collection of Never-Trump Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans that is indicative of her ulterior aims. Included are California Rep. Adam Schiff, a notorious purveyor of Trump-Russia collusion falsehoods, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Trump impeachment manager. Mrs. Pelosi allowed no counterbalancing Republicans to serve, rejecting defenders of the former president in favor of reliable GOP renegades, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Ms. Cheney also struck a patriotic-sounding tone: “We cannot leave the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes uninvestigated. The American people deserve the full and open testimony of every person with knowledge of the planning and preparation for Jan. 6. We must know what happened here at the Capitol.”
Her participation in the Jan. 6 inquisition, however, reveals an irrepressible anti-Trump intent. A foreign policy hawk, she could not help but resent Mr. Trump for his harsh criticism of the equally hawkish and perhaps ultimately futile foreign entanglements that her father, Vice President Dick Cheney, championed in Iraq.
Similarly, the Democrat-controlled Congress demonstrates a biased view of events preceding that volatile January day in Washington. Lawmakers show little interest in bewildering alterations of election procedures and an unprecedented rash of balloting anomalies on Election Day 2020. Had Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and elsewhere upheld the Constitution in adjudicating a blizzard of legal challenges rather than timidly dismissing them, patriotic Americans would not have felt compelled to rally in Washington on a cold January day.
“Full and open testimony” requires accounting for the reportedly foolish rejection by congressional officialdom, which Mrs. Pelosi leads, of assistance from the Pentagon to secure the Capitol grounds before Jan. 6. It should also ascertain whether FBI assets were embedded among the protesters to thwart the violence or to instigate it.
Anything less tells Americans that they are witnessing a kangaroo court bounding past the truth toward a preordained conclusion.
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