Democrats must stop using Jan. 6 committee to advance its witch hunt 

The Jan. 6 committee formed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is on a political witch-hunt. Who is surprised? 

This is the same crew that spent years perpetuating a false narrative that then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 presidential election. That effort collapsed because that particular witch-hunt committee concluded the allegations were untrue.

No one should be surprised about Pelosi’s bogus committee because congressional Democrats have so much love of power and such little regard for the truth that, after the events of Jan. 6, they rushed through a second impeachment of President Trump without an investigation or evidence to support their allegations. 

They sped the impeachment through the House, setting aside the normal procedures, and raced to the Senate using a process that was so flawed that the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, refused to preside at the Senate trial. That was an historic first, as the Constitution provides that only the chief justice may preside at a Senate impeachment trial.

In the meantime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating the Jan. 6 incident. It has been reported by the media that the FBI did not find evidence of a widespread, coordinated effort to overturn the presidential election results of 2020.

But that won’t stop the radicals who form the leadership of the Democrats in Congress from creating their own distorted narrative. They don’t want to see the outcome of the FBI’s investigation because they want skewed results. And, they will distort the facts.

The Biden administration has utterly failed economically (rising inflation, low job-creation, high unemployment), domestically (increase in violent crimes, continued unrest), socially (parents upset with the indoctrination of their children in schools teaching Critical Race Theory), internationally (13 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan while leaving hundreds of Americans behind, and Taliban extremists now armed with U.S. weaponry) and created crises (opened our borders to hundreds of thousands of illegal border-crossers each month).

Staring political failure in the eyes, Pelosi and her minions in Congress are determined to distract Americans with a redundant partisan committee to foment continued distaste for former President Trump and his followers among their radically left-wing base and the media. 

Don’t buy the argument that this is a bipartisan committee. Pelosi allowed House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California to appoint five members to the committee. But when he gave her five names, Pelosi booted two Republicans from the committee. In protest of Pelosi’s unprecedented action, Republicans refused to serve on an overtly partisan and stacked committee.

In response, Pelosi appointed the two biggest Republican “Never-Trumpers” in Congress, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Cheney is now the vice chairman of the committee.

Why would anyone think that this is a committee seeking the truth? 

Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) has requested phone and email records of at least ten Republicans, including me. He did so without formally notifying any of the named Republicans, choosing instead to leak his list of targeted Republicans to friendly sources in the media.

Further evidence of the partisan nature of this witch-hunt is that Thompson requested records for ten months, no doubt to investigate campaign communications related to the 2020 election.

Thompson’s theory of why he should be able to request records may well be used as a precedent for rifling through every American’s communications. Republicans and, indeed, all Americans must reject this tyrannical turn by the Democrats who control Congress. 

I have joined some of my colleagues in three actions. 

We have written a letter to the telecom and social media companies who received the Democrats’ records request, reminding them that the law, including recent U.S. Supreme Court cases, limit congressional access to these types of records.

We have renewed our effort to effectuate a rule change for the Republican Conference that will allow Cheney and Kinzinger to choose whether they want to be part of the Republican Conference or be used as tools of Pelosi. 

And we sent the telecom and social media companies a list of Democrats that should be investigated and requested that their records be retained so Congress can conduct those investigations.

The Jan. 6 committee is a continuation of a series of abuses of power by Speaker Pelosi. She loves power, as do many congressional Democrats. So, the answer to my question at the beginning of this column — “Who is surprised?” — is: “No one. No one is surprised that this committee is a witch-hunt being conducted for partisan political purposes and to distract from the disastrous Biden administration.” 

Andy Biggs represents the 5th District of Arizona and is a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Reform Committee.