Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were engaging in a “serious assault on our country” by opposing legislation to establish a commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol riots.
Lofgren said, “This is about putting our country first, having a dispassionate, nonpolitical analysis of what happened on January 6th when the Congress was attacked, essentially our constitutional processes were attacked. It’s important for the United States that we have a functioning government, that we don’t have those that would topple that government hiding under stones. We need to shine a light on it and the way to do that is this commission which Republicans and Democrats agreed was the way to proceed until apparently now, and President Trump doesn’t want the truth to come up.”
She continued, “I have had Republican members tell me they think the commission is necessary and support it, and that was before McCarthy and McConnell, and apparently former President Trump came out against it. We’ll see how they vote. But I think those of us who want the country to survive, who are putting the United States ahead of our political party will want to support this commission. I hope that includes large numbers of both Democrats and Republicans in the House, because we should all be patriots before we are members of a party.”
Cabrera asked, “You don’t think Congressman McCarthy or Senator McConnell want this country to survive?”
Lofgren responded, “If they are not willing to accept the truth as a basis for what happened in January as a prescription for what we need to do to preserve the institutions of our country, then that is a serious assault on our country, our Constitution and our ability to thrive as the oldest democracy, constitutional democracy in the world. That’s what is really important here, more than these petty partisan politics.”
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