House passes bill to create Jan. 6 Capitol riot commission

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced in floor remarks Wednesday that he is opposed to the Jan. 6 commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol.

McConnell's comments come as the House is set to vote today on legislation to create the commission, which House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also came out strongly against.

McConnell said on the Senate floor there already is, and has been, investigations into the Capitol riot by the federal government and it is not clear what new information would come out of another probe.

"The facts have come out and they will continue to come out," he said.

McConnell also criticized Democrats' handling of the proposal, saying the effort has been done in a partisan way.

"I've been an outspoken critic of all the episodes of the political violence," he said, adding that he supports justice for any American who has broken the law.

This commission will need 60 votes in the Senate to pass, and McConnell’s opposition could kill the bill in the higher chamber.

Right before McConnell announced he won't back the commission, Schumer, in his floor remarks, pointed to "sad" and "unfortunate" reports that the Senate Republican leader “might be following his House colleagues down the rabbit hole and will oppose the commission” and said, “I hope that isn't true."

He added: “But the American people will see for themselves whether our Republican friends stand on the side of truth or on the side of Donald Trump."

The bill House lawmakers will vote on today would create a 10-person commission, with each party getting an equal number of appointments and subpoena power.

The legislation tasks the panel with examining "the facts and circumstances of the January 6th attack on the Capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy."

Watch the moment:

CNN's Annie Grayer contributed reporting to this post. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted House GOP leadership for swooping in at eleventh hour to try and “kill a bipartisan investigation” into the violent attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, arguing their efforts are “beyond crazy, to be so far under the thumb of Donald J. Trump.”

This comes as the House is set to vote today on the bill, which House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out strongly against.

Schumer repeated his promise to bring the legislation creating a bipartisan commission to look into January 6 to a vote on the Senate floor, but did not provide a timeline.

“Here in the Senate we will have a vote on the January 6 commission,” he said in Senate floor remarks. “The only way to stop these lies is to respond with the truth… an independent commission can be the antidote to the poisonous mistruths that continue to spread about January 6.”

He also argued that House GOP leadership trying to “sabotage” the commission after rank-and-file members struck a bipartisan agreement, as well as Rep. Liz Cheney being ousted from her leadership post, "is the shameful, shameful desire to protect Donald Trump and perpetuate the ‘Big Lie,’ even though it undermines our Democracy.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republicans today he is opposed to the Jan. 6 commission as it’s currently drafted, according to a GOP source familiar with the remarks. 

McConnell is headed to the Senate floor now to comment on the commission. 

Some more background: The House is set to vote today on legislation to establish an independent commission that would investigate the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6 after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out in strong opposition to the bipartisan deal reached last week.

The bill lawmakers will vote on would create a 10-person commission, with each party getting an equal number of appointments and subpoena power, a key provision that McCarthy had said he wanted early on in negotiations.

The legislation tasks the panel with examining "the facts and circumstances of the January 6th attack on the Capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy."

After telling members that GOP leadership would not whip votes on the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise's office has done an about face and is urging caucus members to vote no when the measure comes to the House floor today.

The letter says, in part, "while Ranking Member Katko negotiated in earnest to improve upon previous proposals, Speaker Pelosi delayed for months and prevented the inclusion of a wider investigatory scope, proving her main concern is politics over solutions."

And, "This Commission cannot investigate the political violence leading up to and following the attack on the 6th, including the June 2017 shooting at the Republican Congressional baseball practice, and the deadly attack on Capitol Police on April 2, 2021." 

Later Scalise's office told CNN Scalise is not “whipping” the vote, saying this is what they call a “leadership recommendation."

Scalise spokesperson Lauren Fine tells CNN, "A whip check and a leadership rec [sic] are two different things – Scalise’s position didn’t change. We have not and are not whipping the bill." 

Right before sending the letter urging members to vote no, Scalise dodged questions on whether he plans to support the Jan. 6 commission, instead blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats for not working across the aisle. 

When first asked if he shared Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s concerns, Scalise said, “I’m concerned with where it is right now but there are amendments that are being brought forward in the Rules Committee by a number of our members and I want to see if they’re able to be successful at getting those adopted.”

Scalise also avoided answering whether he thinks Republicans should cooperate and appoint members to the panel, should the bill pass the Senate. 

The Biden administration released a statement yesterday supporting the House bill to create a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The statement came a few hours after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would be voting against it.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated the administration’s support for the House bill during a gaggle aboard Air Force One Tuesday.

“The President has long said and has said before that January 6 was a dark day in our country and a dark day for democracy, and he certainly supports the efforts to put together a bipartisan commission by members of Congress to look back at what happened, how we got there, and prevent it from happening in the future, so that is certainly an initiative we support,” Psaki said.

Even though House Republican leadership is encouraging members to vote against the bill to create a commission on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, some GOP lawmakers have come out strongly in support of the legislation or at least hinted they are leaning toward getting on board.

Over the weekend, Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Fred Upton of Michigan joined Rep. John Katko of New York, who helped strike the deal on the commission, in coming out in strong support of the bipartisan deal.

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, another of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, outlined why he is supporting the bill.

Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who's a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, in explaining why he will support the legislation, told CNN, "We should know why security was ill prepared and broken that day."

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an ally of Cheney who also voted to impeach Trump and has been increasingly critical of McCarthy, also came out in support of the January 6 commission ahead of the vote.

"We cannot let fear stop us from doing what is right. This week, I will proudly vote in support of the bipartisan January 6th commission and hope it is successful in shedding light on the truth," the Illinois Republican said in a statement.

But the Republican split in the House over the Jan. 6 commission legislation has led to further confusion in the Senate.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune predicted Monday that the Senate would pass a bill to establish a commission probing the Jan. 6 attack "in some form," but changed his tune on Tuesday when it became clear that House Republicans were not in sync on the legislation.

"It's a little more uncertain, I would say now," the South Dakota Republican said when asked about opposition from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as well as other members of the Senate GOP leadership team.

"When the leader over there comes out in opposition to it — my understanding was they had it kind of worked out, Republicans and Democrats were going to join together on this based on the changes that had been made," Thune said. "But if that's not the case, that certainly could affect the way people over here view it."

The bill House lawmakers will vote on today would create a 10-person commission, with each party getting an equal number of appointments and subpoena power.

The legislation tasks the panel with examining "the facts and circumstances of the January 6th attack on the Capitol as well as the influencing factors that may have provoked the attack on our democracy."

Meanwhile, the federal investigation on the attack continues. The Justice Department has charged at least 400 people in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, according to CNN's latest review of court documents in April.

The 400 known defendants come from 43 states and Washington, DC, according to CNN's analysis.

The massive federal inquiry has added several defendants nearly each day since the attack, and federal prosecutors said in a recent court filing that they expect to charge at least 500 people.

There are hundreds of still-unidentified photographs of rioters on the FBI's "most wanted" website, indicating that plenty of people who stormed the Capitol haven't been charged yet — and that the unprecedented investigation continues.

The deadly attack injured more than 100 police officers, halted Congress' counting of the Electoral College votes for more than five hours and forced lawmakers into lockdown when pro-Trump rioters overran the US Capitol Police.

Read more about the investigation here.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to not support the Jan. 6 commission bill but promised it will get a vote in the Senate. The House is set to vote on the legislation today.

Schumer also warned Republicans they will be put on the record.

“Republicans can let their constituents know or they are deciding. Do they want to cover up for the insurrectionists and for Donald Trump?” said Schumer. “A lot of what McCarthy asked about with some of his members is a bogus way to avoid focusing on what really happened on January 6th.”

Republican sources say this morning they are not sure how many GOP defections there’ll be in today's vote for the bipartisan Jan. 6th commission, in part because there’s not a formal whip operation even though they are urging members to vote against it. 

With the GOP leadership, former president Trump and the Wall Street Journal editorial board against the commission, they expect a vast majority of the conference to oppose it.

But the GOP sources familiar with the matter still expect up to 40 defections — in part because of the 29 GOP members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, many of whom will vote for it.