Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) says the Republicans who’ve stuck by Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “will not be judged well by history,” The Hill reported on Tuesday, January 4, 2022 (story here).
The GOP has boycotted the House investigation of the Capitol riot, and refused to cooperate with it, but that doesn’t make it a partisan witch hunt.
The Capitol riot really happened. There’s no evidence “antifa” or Black Lives Matter were behind it, the FBI instigated it, or that it was a “false flag.” The mob that stormed the Capitol carried Trump and Confederate flags, and wore “MAGA” hats and other pro-Trump clothing and paraphernalia. Hundreds of arrested rioters, many of whom have already pleaded guilty, identified themselves in social media and court proceedings as Trump supporters.
The House committee is simply trying to get to the bottom of what happened, how, and why. They have no prosecution authority, and won’t bring charges against anyone. All they can do is issue a report. All they’re doing is gathering facts and recording them for history and the public’s information.
Who would oppose that except those with guilty motives and consciences?
It’s said that “the winners write history,” but that’s not really true. Sometimes survivors, dissidents, and victims make major contributions to the historical record that influence popular judgments of historical events. (For example, Anne Frank’s diary, Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” and Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.”)
Congress is a partisan body, so naturally there’s suspicion of its work product, but the committee report — when it comes out — should be judged on its merits and objectivity, not by the fact a House investigation boycotted by Republicans produced it.
This investigation is somewhat analogous to the Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the Pentagon Papers, the Peers report of the My Lai massacre, and other official government investigations. It’s different from the criminal investigations conducted by the FBI, U.S. attorneys, and other law enforcement bodies. Their purpose is simply to collect facts and create a factual record.
There’s no reason to believe the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is making things up or will issue a partisan-biased report. How historians, the public, and future generations judge that event and those responsible for it is up to them. But it was undeniably a major event in American history.