Study: Only 10% of subpoenas from Pelosi’s commission address Capitol riot

By Bob Unruh

Outside during the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot (Wikimedia Commons)
Outside during the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot (Wikimedia Commons)

It’s long been indicated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan commission assigned to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol has other priorities than just that investigation.

After all, among the first witnesses perhaps should have been Pelosi, who holds responsibility for the operations and security of the structure, and key federal law enforcement officers, to explain what FBI agents or informants were on hand, and what they were doing that day.

But that’s not what’s happened so far.

In fact, a new analysis published at The Federalist reveals that only one in 10 of the subpoenas the commission has issued “relate to the Capitol riot.”

Tristan Justice documented that the analysis of the 84 subpoenas that have been issued publicly showed “only 8 have targeted individuals or groups with any connection to the Capitol riot.”

“The rest have taken aim at former government officials and private citizens in a smear campaign for exercising their constitutional right to protest,” he explained.

Not included in the study were the 100 subpoenas that the commission has issued secretly, trying to get telephone records of individuals who haven’t even been told they’re being investigated.

The commission is partisan because Pelosi rejected members nominated by the GOP minority in the House. Instead, she hand-selected multiple rabidly anti-Trump Democrats, such as Adam Schiff, who ardently claimed to have evidence of Trump-Russia collusion in 2016 even after that had been debunked, and anti-Trump GOP members Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger.

The report explains the partisan group was assembled because Republicans blocked a 9/11-style commission when Democrats refused to authorize a genuine investigation of violence that day.

Instead, the group’s goal is “seeking retribution against political dissidents while offering a smokescreen to Pelosi’s own culpability in her failures to reinforce Capitol security,” the report said.

In fact, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told CNN, “If you look at the charge that we have in the resolution, it says the facts and circumstances around January 6. I don’t see the speaker being part and parcel to that.”

But Pelosi reportedly refused to approve the assignment of National Guard troops, “not once, but six times, according to testimony from former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress reportedly have told federal agencies not to provide information to members of the GOP who have launched an actual investigation into the violence that day.

Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., raised the issue with Pelosi in a letter that said, “There is irony in the fact that the same time House Democrats are holding witnesses in criminal contempt of Congress for raising genuine questions of legal privilege, you continue to obstruct Republican access to House records relating to the security preparedness of the Capitol complex.”

The report said one of those subpoenaed was Andrew Surabian, who is working to unseat Cheney in Wyoming, even though he was “overseeing a Super PAC in support of Republican Senate candidates in Georgia” at the time.

His lawyer said, in a statement, “Accordingly, we believe this is nothing more than harassment of the committee’s political opponents and is un-American to the core.”

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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