Former President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted the 35 House Republicans that voted in favor of establishing a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol, suggesting it would cost them support from his base.
While nearly three dozen Republicans supported the bill, Trump named Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was recently ousted from her leadership role over her criticisms of the former president and his role in the attack, and frequent Trump critics Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) while slamming its proponents despite the Senate not yet having voted on the measure. House GOP leadership did not formally whip its members against the measure, but urged a “no vote.”
“See, 35 wayward Republicans — they just can’t help themselves. We have much better policy and are much better for the Country, but the Democrats stick together, the Republicans don’t,” he said in a statement.
“They don’t have the Romney’s, Little Ben Sasse’s, and Cheney’s of the world. Unfortunately, we do. Sometimes there are consequences to being ineffective and weak. The voters understand!
Trump had released a statement ahead of the vote — which passed in a 252-175 vote on Wednesday — urging lawmakers to reject the measure, alleging the bipartisan deal that was struck between House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Ranking Member John Katko (R-NY) last week was “more partisan unfairness” by Democrats.
Under the legislation — which closely mirrored the GOP proposal laid out earlier this year — each party would select five commissioners to look into the security shortcomings that allowed a mob of pro-Trump rioters to breach the Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the election results.
Current government officials would be prohibited from serving on the panel, which would be tasked with issuing a report by the end of the year with its findings and recommendations to prevent similar instances of violence from taking place on Capitol grounds. Despite its passage in the House, it appears dead on arrival in the upper chamber, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressing his opposition to the bill in its current form.
A number of Republicans who came out against the measure, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), took issue with the scope of the commission, arguing it should investigate a broader range of instances of political violence. But others, most notably Cheney, argued gravity of the riot — which led to five deaths and hundreds of injures — when a pro-Trump mob breached the building in an effort to derail the certification of the election warranted its own investigation,
GOP Reps. French Hill (Ark.) , Steve Womack (Ark.) David Valadao (Calif.) Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), Maria Salazar (Fla.), Mike Simpson (Idaho) Rodney Davis (Ill.), Kinzinger (Ill.), Trey Hollingsworth (Ind.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa) Peter Meijer (Mich.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Michael Guest (Miss.), Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Chris Smith (N.J.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Tom Reed (N.Y.), Katko, Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Dave Joyce (Ohio), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Stephanie Bice (Okla.), Cliff Bentz (Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Tom Rice (S.C.), Dusty Johnson (S.D.), Van Taylor (Texas), Tony Gonzales (Texas), Blake Moore (Utah), John Curtis (Utah), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Dan Newhouse (Wash.), David McKinley (W.V.) and Cheney voted in favor of the bill.