EVILNASTYNANCYS hand picked Trump haters picked for the JAN6 dog and pony farce
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jan-6-select-committee-attack-capitol-first-hearing-officers-law-enforcement-pelosi-cheney-kinzinger#&_intcmp=hp1r_1Jan. 6 committee, after partisan battle over appointees, holds first hearing on Capitol attack
First hearing to focus on experience of front-line officers during attack by pro-Trump mob
Tyler OlsonBy Tyler Olson | Fox News
Jan. 6 Capitol riot committee holds first hearing
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is holding its first hearing Tuesday, kicking off what is likely to be a politically charged and contentious several months focusing on the violent day.
The Tuesday hearing focuses on "The Law Enforcement Experience on January 6th." The four witnesses at the hearing are Private First Class Harry Dunn and Sergeant Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police, and Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Metropolitan Police Department.
"It’s an honor to have four of those heroes sitting before us today. Welcome. For appearing here, and more importantly, for your heroism on January 6th," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening remarks.
Shortly after the hearing began, Thompson – who emphasized that at least one rioter said he was at the Capitol to "overthrow the government" and that others chanted "hang Mike Pence" – played video of the violence that played out in the building.
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President Joe Biden's victory, thousands of people gathered to show their support for former President Donald Trump and his false claims of election fraud. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
CHENEY'S, KINZINGER'S ROLES ON JAN. 6 COMMITTEE TO COME INTO SHARP FOCUS IN FIRST HEARING
The graphic video showed rioters pushing through police barricades, and saying "f--- you police;" played panicked police radio tape; included graphic body cam footage and showed violent crowds overwhelming officers as they pushed toward the inside of the Capitol.
Also in the video were the gallows set up outside the Capitol and rioters saying they were "coming for" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and former Vice President Mike Pence, who they called a "traitor." The video closed with one person saying "we need 30,000 guns up here," and another person saying, "next trip."
"He will be back, he warns us. It's just chilling," Thompson said. "We need to understand how and why the big lie festered… And we need to figure out how to fix the damage."
According to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., one of the Democrats on the committee, the officers will to outline their experience on the front lines of the Capitol attack, which was carried out by a mob of Trump supporters as Congress was attempting to certify the presidential election results. They will recount how outnumbered the police were and how militarized some of the attackers were, Schiff said.
Schiff said the hearing will be "quite informative and powerful."
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Thompson leads six other Democrats and two Republicans – Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. The pair are the only Republicans on the committee after Pelosi refused to seat Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Oho, and Jim Banks, R-Ind., because they are too closely aligned with former President Donald Trump.
This caused Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to pull all five of his picks for the committee and led Republicans – who were already decrying the panel as a slanted hatchet job against Trump – to lambaste it even further as nakedly political.
"Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi will only pick people onto the committee that will ask the questions she wants asked," McCarthy said at a Tuesday press conference. "That becomes a failed committee and a failed report – a sham that no one can believe."
"What kind of intelligence did Speaker Pelosi get early off, weeks in advance… that gave telltale signals that could have prevented what happened on Jan. 6?" Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday. "But Speaker Pelosi said that she doesn't want those questions asked so she kicked them off the committee."
In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, supporters of former President Donald Trump scale the west wall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Scalise added: "It has completely debased the legitimacy of this commission because clearly they're not searching for the truth. They're searching to get a narrative out that Speaker Pelosi has already written."
Republicans plan to hold their own investigation into Jan. 6.
But Kinzinger and Cheney – as well as Pelosi, who appointed them – insist that the committee will remain nonpolitical in its mission to provide an accounting of what happened on Jan. 6 and why.
"This moment requires a serious, clear-eyed, non-partisan approach. We are duty-bound to conduct a full investigation on the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814 and to make sure it can never happen again," Kinzinger said in a statement after being appointed to the committee.
"
ur imperative must be to find the truth," Pelosi said in a statement. "We must do so in a way that retains the trust of the American people in the proceedings, so that they will have confidence in the truth that emerges."
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, smoke fills the walkway outside the Senate Chamber as supporters of former President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers inside the Capitol in Washington. Far-right social media users for weeks openly hinted in widely shared posts that chaos would erupt at the U.S. Capitol while Congress convened to certify the election results. Republicans allege that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should have seen those signs and fortified the Capitol. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Tuesday's hearing is expected to last only a few hours, until about 1 p.m. But the select committee investigation itself may last for months, dragging into the 2022 election year before the members wrap up their work and produce a report.
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This will make it a likely target for Trump as he continues to become more active on the campaign trail for Republican candidates. The former president assailed the committee in a Monday statement, daring it to investigate one element of the attack Republicans have been pushing to look into: Whether Pelosi, as House speaker, could have done more to protect the Capitol.
"Will Nancy investigate herself and those on Capitol Hill who didn’t want additional protection, including more police and National Guard, therefore being unprepared despite the large crowd of people that everyone knew was coming?" Trump said.
The Tuesday hearing is the first for the select committee but it is not nearly the first time Congress has looked into the Jan. 6 attack. There have been more than a dozen hearings on the attack since the winter, not including the 25 hours the Senate spent on the matter during Trump's impeachment trial.