Hours before a House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol riots began public hearings, Republican lawmakers tried to portray the group as illegitimate. At a press conference, they condemned the formation of the commission, its work and chairman Nancy Pelosi with inaccurate statements. Here’s a fact check.
What was said
“He has been caught altering evidence, including text messages from our senior member Jim Jordan.” – Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, told a news conference Thursday.
This is an exaggeration. This was a reference to a text message presented at a meeting of the selected commission investigating the January 6 riot. The text was not presented in full, but no words were changed.
During the meeting, Representative Adam B. Schiff, a Democrat from California, read and presented a text that an unnamed MP sent to Mr. Meadows: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as Speaker of the Senate, should call everyone electoral votes, which he considers unconstitutional, as there are no electoral votes at all. “
Mr Schiff then said that the text message illustrated why it was “so critical” to keep questioning Mr Meadows.
A few days later, the conservative newspaper The Federalist reported that the text came from Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, who forwarded it to Mr. Meadows; the announcement originally came from a lawyer who claimed the vice president had the legal authority to desert the votes.
The full text reads: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as Speaker of the Senate, must call out all electoral votes he deems unconstitutional, as there are no electoral votes at all – in accordance with the guidelines of the founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial priority. “No piece of legislation,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78, “contradicts the Constitution, cannot be valid.” The Hubbard v. Lowe Court confirmed this truth: which is no longer open for discussion. ”226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916). Following this justification, an unconstitutionally appointed voter, like an unconstitutionally adopted statute, is not a voter at all.
A spokesman for the committee confirmed the shortening of the text and apologized.
What was said
“She rejected the minority election to be on the committee. This contradicts a 232-year-old tradition in this hall. You reject the minority having the floor in committee. “Mr. McCarthy.”
False. Seven Democrats and two Republicans sit on the elected committee, contrary to Mr McCarthy’s claim that it is entirely partisan. In addition, Mr. McCarthy misses the fact that he is partly responsible for the small number of Republicans involved. His emphasis on a two-century tradition of minority contributions is also wrong.
The Chamber adopted a resolution setting up the elected committee in June 2021, giving Ms Pelosi the power to appoint eight members and Mr McCarthy five. A few weeks later, Mr McCarthy nominated Jim Banks of Indiana as a member of the list, as did Mr Jordan and Rodney Davis of Illinois, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Troy Nels of Texas.
Ms. Pelosi dismissed Mr Banks and Mr Jordan, arguing that Mr Trump’s two vocal supporters could affect the “integrity of the investigation”, but agreed with the participation of the other three Republicans. In response, Mr McCarthy said Republicans would not participate at all unless Mr Jordan and Mr Banks were allowed to join the committee.
Ms. Pelosi later nominated two Republicans criticizing Mr. Trump, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinsinger of Illinois.
Mr McCarthy was also wrong to say that Mrs Pelosi had broken a two-century tradition by rejecting two of his elections. In fact, he had appointed members and heads of committees until 1911, and he had “retained the power” to appoint members to select committees, according to a House of Representatives.
In other words, the Minority Party has not played a role in the appointment process for most of American history, said Joshua K. Huder, a senior fellow and expert on congressional procedures and history at Georgetown University. After 1911, it was unusual for a majority party to deny minority elections, but Mr Huder said: “I know for sure that they have used informal political weight to limit who the minority chooses.”
What was said
“Did President Pelosi take part in the decision to postpone aid to the National Guard on January 6?” These are serious and real questions that this committee refuses to even ask. Speaker Pelosi does not want to answer these questions because he knows that the answers to these questions leave a trail of bread crumbs right in her office, emphasizing her negligence, her lack of leadership as Speaker of the House. – Mr Banks, at the same press conference
This is misleading. For more than a year, Republican and conservative commentators have repeatedly and misleadingly accused Ms. Pelosi of delaying the deployment of the National Guard in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
There is no evidence that Ms. Pelosi’s office rejected a request to deploy the National Guard or even played a role in any delay in approval. The decision is by the Capitol Police Council, which includes a sergeant in the House and Senate and the Capitol architect.
A report by two bipartisan Senate committees investigating the January 6 attack attributed the delay in the National Guard’s request to “non-transparent trials”. He noted that members of the Capitol Police Council were unaware of the approval process and provided conflicting information on when assistance was first requested.
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