Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), who served as a House impeachment manager in then-President Trump’s first impeachment trial last year, on Sunday urged his Democratic colleagues to move forward with creating a commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack after Senate Republicans deployed the filibuster to block it.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” Crow recalled the “brutal and violent day” of Trump supporters breaching the Capitol on the day of the joint session of Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Then-President Trump told his supporters at a “Stop the Steal” rally hours before the attack to “fight like hell” to overturn the election results amid refusing to concede and espousing election fraud falsehoods.
Asked where the commission goes next after Senate Republicans killed the House-passed bipartisan bill that would establish a Jan. 6 commission, Crow replied that it’s a question of whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will take another vote on the commission, and if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) believe that vote would be in good faith.
After noting that the final tally for the commission bill had 54 yes votes and that some senators had already left for the holiday weekend, Crow said that Democrats believe more people would have voted for it had they been present.
“So the question is: can we get those three or four additional votes? Or are we just delaying the inevitable and that is: are we going to have to take up a select committee on the House side or some kind of House and Senate combined committee and do this ourselves?” Crow said.
Crow added that that he is unsure what route will be taken, but made clear that investigations into the Jan. 6 attacks must happen regardless.
Crow went on to take aim at Republican lawmakers for opposing the Jan. 6 commission that was crafted by the bipartisan team of House Homeland Security committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and ranking member John Katko (R-NY).
“I am sick of playing the game of Whac-a-Mole with GOP members in Congress. Every time we address one of their concerns, another one pops up,” Crow said. “It’s like playing Whac-a-Mole with Chuck E. Cheese growing up. We just can’t continue to do that forever. We need to get answers. There’s an urgency to this, let’s not forget.”
Crow cited the spread of the big lie that is being used to further voter suppression laws around the country and the growing number of Republicans who embrace false claims of a stolen election.
“This is a problem that is prescient and it’s growing and we have to address it with some timeliness,” Crow said.
On Friday, Senate Republicans killed the House-passed Jan. 6 commission bill in a 54-35 vote, using the filibuster to block the legislation from advancing.
Only six Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — crossed party lines in an effort to overcome the 60-vote threshold needed to break the filibuster and send the bill to the floor for debate.
Some Senate Republicans who voted in favor of the commission have began looking to the future after the bill was blocked by their colleagues.
“The most likely outcome, sadly, is probably the Democratic leaders will appoint a select committee,” Collins told Politico. “We’ll have a partisan investigation. It won’t have credibility with people like me, but the press will cover it because that’s what’s going on.”
Watch Crow’s remarks below:
WATCH: Rep. Jason Crow says an investigation of the capitol riots "has to get done" with or without Republicans. #MTP@RepJasonCrow: "I am sick of playing the game of Whac-a-Mole with GOP members in Congress. Every time we address one of their concerns, another one pops up." pic.twitter.com/jRHHWVSGmo
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 30, 2021
