This week, Liz Cheney has joined the Democrats in pretending as though Pelosi’s new select committee is going to be neutral and fair. But the full details of the committee prove, without a doubt, that it is purely a show.
Today Byron York adds a few thoughts on this:
The chairman of new select committee to investigate Capitol riot is already suing former President Trump over the Capitol riot. Has already declared Trump ‘conspired’ with violent groups to ‘incite’ the riot. All before the committee even starts work. https://t.co/DRrRgKbyt8
— Byron York (@ByronYork) July 2, 2021
Here’s more from Byron York:
A NEW GET-TRUMP COMMITTEE? A congressional investigation is a fact-finding enterprise. The members aren’t neutral finders of fact — they are Republicans and Democrats who often fight over the subject and scope of the investigation. But the idea is to find facts.
Now take a look at the new Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, created this week in a nearly party-line vote in the House. Even before the investigation begins, the chairman of the committee, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, has already found all the facts he needs to find former President Donald Trump guilty of incitement. We know because Thompson has said so, over and over again, in a lawsuit blaming Trump for the riot.
In February, Thompson, acting in his personal capacity, filed suit against Trump, presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and the groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Whatever its title, the suit is about Trump; the other defendants are just supporting players. Trump is named 126 times in the document, versus 40 for Giuliani, 47 for the Proud Boys, and 18 for the Oath Keepers. In other words, the suit is about Trump.
Thompson begins with the declaration that Trump and the others “conspired to incite an assembled crowd to march upon and enter the Capitol of the United States for the common purpose of disrupting, by the use of force, intimidation and threat, the approval by Congress of the count of votes cast by members of the Electoral College as required by Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.” The suit says Trump created a “unified plan” to incite and then carry out the riot — the suit calls it an “insurrection” 12 times — with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers the junior partners doing the actual fighting. Thompson asks a judge to declare Trump guilty of violating 42 US Code 1985, the law covering “conspiracy to interfere with civil rights.”
So now the same Representative Thompson is leading the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. He has already decided who to blame — the task now is just to formalize the verdict.
The select committee already has the facts they want. Their task isn’t to find facts, but to see just much they can pin on Trump and Republicans. Heck these people already voted to impeach Trump over this in January, including Cheney. This is a partisan, political committee on a witch hunt and nothing more. And this is exactly what Cheney is endorsing.
