A Clarification From the Capitol Riot Committee The chairman makes it even harder to take this work seriously. James Freeman
Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D., Miss.), who defied the U.S. Constitution in 2005 by seeking to block certification of the re-election of President George W. Bush, is back in the news. No, Mr. Thompson is not denying legitimate election results again. But his Tuesday comments appear to represent yet another affront to constitutional governance.
Luke Broadwater reports for the New York Times:
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol will issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on its inquiry, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday, but has made no decision on who it will recommend charging or what offenses it will cite.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill that the panel had agreed to take the step and would meet later Tuesday to discuss the specifics. But within moments, he and his staff rushed to clarify his statement, reflecting a debate that is still underway within the panel about whether to call for charges against former President Donald J. Trump and some of his top allies.
What was clearly needed was not a clarification but a retraction. Americans reasonably expect their government to identify a specific crime before suggesting charges. But it seems the “clarification” simply clarified the outrageous approach pursued by this sham committee which consists only of Democrats and Democrat-approved Republicans. Mr. Broadwater of the Times continues:
“What we’ve decided is that we will probably make referrals,” Mr. Thompson told reporters a short time later.
Mr. Thompson, who is known for giving big-picture guidance about the investigation but being at times less involved in the granular details of its work, then suggested that that decision was no longer in question.
“There’s a general agreement we will do some referrals, but we’ve got to get there,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”
Is this committee so political and partisan that it first decided that criminal referrals are necessary to advance its agenda, and only now has set about trying to figure out little details like who should be targeted for prosecution by Biden Justice and on what basis?
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James Freeman of the Journal editorial board comments on the news of the day.
Some readers might assume that something has been garbled by the New York Times but the Journal’s Scott Patterson also reports on Mr. Thompson’s comments:
“We’ve not made a decision as to who, but we have made decisions that criminal referrals will happen,” he said.
So we are told that criminal prosecutions must commence, with alleged offenses and alleged perpetrators to be determined later. Sounds like a fascinating plot premise for the television producer Democrats hired to make the committee a prime-time smash. Too bad that last month U.S. voters decided to cancel season two.
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