Why the Jan. 6 Panel Is On The Clock

By Elana Schor for POLITICO Nightly, With help from Kate Irby

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/12/06/why-the-jan-6-panel-is-on-the-clock-495341

It’s been 11 months since thousands of people besieged the Capitol in a violent bid to disrupt the congressional certification of Donald Trump’s election loss, and the public is still learning major details about the mishandling of the military’s response.

POLITICO reported this morning on a 36-page memo from Col. Earl Matthews, who served as the top attorney to the chief of the D.C. National Guard on Jan. 6, that undercuts senior Army officials’ characterization of their response to the Capitol attack. The memo accuses two generals of lying to Congress.

The emergence of such serious allegations from a former high-ranking official — who held Trump-administration posts at the Pentagon and National Security Council — underscores the value of a comprehensive investigation into a riot that led to multiple deaths. Multiple players in the rally that metastasized into the insurrection are already cooperating with the Jan. 6 select committee to varying degrees.

Which reinforces the fact that right now, the Jan. 6 panel is the only comprehensive investigation in Washington that’s probing how the government responded to an attack on one of its branches. Republicans don’t approve of the way Speaker Nancy Pelosi is conducting the Jan. 6 probe, but they have yet to announce any alternative investigation of their own.

That leaves a serious burden on the shoulders of Democrats, as well as select panel Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger: They have to beat the midterm clock with an inquiry that can result in significant findings and recommendations before the 2022 elections that are all but guaranteed to end with a GOP majority and a shuttered effort.

It wasn’t always this way: House Republicans have bitterly protested Pelosi’s veto of two of their picks to serve on that committee, which prompted Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to yank his entire slate of selections. But 35 House Republicans also voted for an independent Jan. 6 commission before their Senate GOP colleagues made the legislation their first filibuster of 2021.

The participation of Cheney and Kinzinger has not registered as a bipartisan imprimatur for the investigation for most Republicans because of their status as two vocal Trump critics. Yet whether the inquiry feels partisan to political partisans is less important right than the rarity of its sweeping nature — from the Matthews memo to multiple subpoenas of critical individuals.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the select committee’s chair, is well aware that his probe could have a dim post-midterms future. He’s told us that he hopes to finish by “early spring.” Cheney has vowed “multiple weeks” of public hearings next year.

Neither of them has openly alluded to the second part of their messaging challenge, though: They have to remind the public that Republican leaders, in an unsubtle bid to shield Trump, are prepared to shut the committee down. That’s why Thompson identified his ideal wrapup of next spring in the first place.

Right now, the need to wrap up the Jan. 6 investigation before Republicans take over the House is a Beltway assumption that has yet to resonate for most voters. The Democratic message machine has yet to truly ramp up to communicate some big-picture themes of the Jan. 6 inquiry, beyond emphasizing its bipartisan nature with Cheney and Kinzinger involved.

Consider, though, what is likely to happen if the select committee continues its work next year — submitting a slate of legislative recommendations that, let’s say, are likely to sail through the House on a largely party-line vote but face the same resistance from Senate Republicans that an independent Jan. 6 commission did. The midterms would come and go, a likely Republican speaker would wind down the select panel, and Democrats would be forced to work from the minority to safeguard Congress from future threats.

Might be a good idea to start talking more about it all now, huh?