The Democrats want to extend their military occupation of Washington D.C. into the fall and Speaker Pelosi has called for “an outside, independent 9/11-type Commission” to investigate the Capitol riot.
Or as Pelosi puts it, “To protect our security, our security, our security, our next step will be to establish an outside, independent 9/11-type Commission to “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex… and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement in the National Capitol Region.””
Security, security, security!
The preparedness and response of the Capitol Police rests with Congress. The Capitol Police are under the authority of Congress. So Pelosi can investigate herself to her little heart’s content.
The Capitol Police, as I wrote in my article, The Capitol Hill Riot Was Pelosi’s Fault, Not Trump’s, had more than enough manpower.
The Capitol Police have over 2,000 sworn officers. A police force dedicated to protecting Capitol Hill has more personnel in its service than the police forces of most of the country.
Congress’ private cops are the 19th largest police force in the country. It’s a larger force than the police forces of Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, or Milwaukee with a massive $460 million budget.
It’s the only legislative federal force in the country that is answerable exclusively to Congress.
And then she can investigate why she failed to call for the National Guard.
Davis, Jordan, Comer and Nunes pointed to claims made by former Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund, that he, on Jan. 4, approached the sergeants at arms to request the assistance of the National Guard. Sund, in a letter to Pelosi last month, said the former Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he was concerned about “the optics” and didn’t feel the “intelligence supported it.”
In their letter, the Republicans also pointed to Sund’s Jan. 6 move to notify the Sergeant at Arms of his request for national guard support and said it “took over an hour for his request to be approved because the SAA had to run the request up the chain of command,” saying that chain “undoubtedly included” Pelosi and her “designees.”
Meanwhile, the Republicans pointed to Pelosi’s comments made on Jan. 7 during a press conference, in which she explained her reasoning for demanding Sund’s resignation, saying that he “hasn’t called us since this happened.”
Republicans said that claim was “refuted” by Sund, who “detailed two occasions that he briefed you on the situation on the Capitol campus—the first occurring at 5:36 p.m. and the second at 6:25 p.m., both on January 6th.”
Davis, Jordan, Comer and Nunes also raised concerns about “obstruction and inability to procure and preserve information” from House officers when they have requested it.
“Such information is necessary to properly conduct oversight on the January 6th events,” they wrote. “Preservation and production requests were sent to the SAA and the House Chief Administrative Officer, among other legislative agencies, requesting that such relevant information concerning the attack on the Capitol, including correspondence, video footage, audio recordings, and other records, be preserved and produced to the relevant committees.”
“In multiple cases, your appointees, acting on your behalf, have denied requests to produce this information,” they continued. “The response we received was: ‘We regret to inform you that given the scope of the information requested and the concerns implicated by the nature of the request… we are unable to comply with the request at this time.’”
So much for that “9/11-type commission”.
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