Speaker Mike Johnson introduced on Wednesday that Home Republicans would set up a brand new choose subcommittee to analyze the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and counter “false narratives” about it, persevering with the occasion’s efforts to rewrite the historical past of the riot.
Mr. Johnson’s announcement got here simply two days after President Trump pardoned these charged in reference to the assault. It steered that Republicans deliberate to make use of their energy over the federal government to proceed selling their very own sanitized model of what had occurred when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, disrupting the certification of the 2020 election.
Mr. Johnson stated the panel, which might be a part of the Judiciary Committee, would proceed “exposing the false narratives peddled by” the earlier choose committee that had investigated the riot and what led to it. He referred to as that committee, which had positioned blame for the assault squarely on Mr. Trump and his effort to overturn the 2020 election, “politically motivated.”
“We are establishing this select subcommittee to continue our efforts to uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people,” Mr. Johnson stated in an announcement.
The transfer marks the newest step for Republicans in attempting to recast the occasions of Jan. 6. On Monday, Mr. Trump issued almost 1,600 pardons and 14 commutations of sentences for rioters, together with these convicted of assaulting cops and seditious conspiracy in opposition to america. He has referred to Jan. 6 as “a day of love” and the rioters as “political prisoners,” “hostages” and “great patriots.”
And on Wednesday, a type of whose sentence was commuted, Stewart Rhodes, the founding father of the Oath Keepers militia who was launched from jail on Monday, was noticed at a Dunkin’ Donuts contained in the Capitol advanced. Mr. Rhodes had been sentenced on charges of sedition stemming from the Capitol assault.
The brand new panel is to be led by Consultant Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who chaired an identical panel over the last Congress. As a part of that panel’s work, he launched a video compilation that sought to shift blame for the Jan. 6 assault away from Mr. Trump and onto former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was pursued that day by a violent mob of Trump supporters.
Consultant Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, teased on Tuesday that she can be the primary member of Congress to supply guided excursions of the Capitol to the not too long ago pardoned and launched rioters.
Within the aftermath of the 2021 assault, some Democrats accused Ms. Boebert and Mr. Loudermilk of getting given Capitol excursions to rioters within the days main as much as Jan. 6. Each denied the allegations.
The Capitol Police stated in 2022 that Mr. Loudermilk’s tour, which was later scrutinized by the Home committee that investigated the assault, appeared to have been an innocuous assembly with constituents.
