Nine months after a mob of supporters of then President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, the commission designed to purge responsibilities and get “to the truth” about what happened in “one of the darkest days lived by Congress” – in the words of the Speaker of the House, the Democrat Nancy Pelosi – languishes. The reason is, to a large extent, the obstructionism exercised by the former Republican president in the work of this body.
The commission promoted by Pelosi fights against time. If the effort to get it constituted was titanic – only two Republicans are part of it compared to 11 Democrats – the political calendar to come, with the threat that Democrats will lose their majority in the House in the next half-term elections of November 2022, maximizes the pressure on its members.
If this date is reached without results, the famous commission known by the name of “select” (it has fewer powers than one capable of investigating and legislating) must be authorized by the new Congress that will begin in 2023 to continue operating. Hence, Trump’s main goal in dusting off his obstruction strategy is to thwart the commission’s efforts long enough to usher in a new House with a Republican majority that allows the investigation to die quietly.
The mandate given by Pelosi can hardly be said to be bipartisan. It is so from the moment two members of the Republican Party sign their decisions, which cost Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger the repudiation of their bench colleagues. But in view of the polls, everything suggests that this commission would have a difficult time renewing its mission with a Congress with a Republican majority. According to a Pew Center poll released last month, a majority of Republican voters feel that too much attention has been paid to the assault on the Capitol, which is consistent with what party leaders think.
At the end of September, four of the men most loyal to Donald Trump were called to testify before the legislative commission of inquiry. Last week, the influential Trump adviser, the radical Steve Bannon, announced that he would not appear before the members of that board. The reasons and the strategy are obvious: delay the investigations until they die due to lack of action. The reason argued by the founder of Breitbart, a media outlet that was fundamental to promoting Trump, is that he is legitimated not to cooperate due to the executive privilege that protects the president’s communications with his team.
Faced with Bannon’s absence, the commission last week sent a letter to the former presidential adviser rejecting his reasons for not complying with the subpoena and dismissing his claim for executive privilege. The commission must decide whether Bannon is in contempt in a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Trump’s three other strongmen called to testify – Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; White House digital strategist Daniel Scavino; and Kashyap Patel, Defense Minister Miller’s chief adviser – have had their testimony postponed. to an unspecified date.
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Given the committee’s Democratic majority, it is almost a given that he will vote that Bannon was in contempt. From there, the matter becomes complex. The next steps are left to the Department of Justice. If anything, this is more of a warning to boaters than actually bringing Bannon to justice, as that process would take years. There are only two other cases in which someone has been charged with contempt of Congress, and one of them is from the McCarthysm era, in the 1950s.
With the ball in the court of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland should speak out. Otherwise, you would be sending the message that you endorse Trump’s performance. The same happens to Congress if it does not hit the table and the commission does not enforce its own subpoenas, since no other defendant would comply with them.
While politics and justice continue their slow course, the calendar advances and the deadline of January 2023, when a new Congress has to define itself on the commission, is getting closer and closer.
On the other hand, a Capitol police officer yesterday pleaded not guilty to charges of obstruction of justice in an event related to the assault on the seat of the US legislature on January 6, according to Reuters.
Michael Riley, who served in the Capitol Police Forces for 25 years, is under investigation for sending Facebook messages to Trump supporters who participated in the riots to remove posts showing him inside the Capitol. Riley feared that he could be prosecuted if those images were made public.
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