WASHINGTON TIMES: DAVID BOSSIE: The political desperation of the Jan. 6 committee

Republican-in-name-only Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been propping up the illegitimate Jan. 6 select committee and assisting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her quest to retain the speaker’s gavel for seven months now.

The mainstream media has made it a priority to play along and protect this sham investigation at all costs because their hatred for former President Donald Trump won’t quit, even though he’s been out of office for more than a year. But as we approach the midterm elections and watch Democrat prospects drop in the polls like a lead balloon, reality is starting to set in.

This committee and its allies in the anti-Trump fake news industry have raised expectations to a level they have no chance of meeting, and that’s why they’re expanding their investigation into everything but the Jan. 6, 2020, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. It’s called political desperation. Over the past year, Democrat policies have caused skyrocketing inflation, a spike in violent crime, a border crisis, critical race theory outrage and mask mandate hysteria. The left is seeking to change the subject with its latest witch hunt of Mr. Trump, but it won’t work.

Make no mistake about it, the entire Jan. 6 committee undertaking is political. Ms. Cheney has continuously stated that her priority is to make sure Mr. Trump isn’t allowed back in the Oval Office for another term as president. Ms. Cheney is misusing this taxpayer-funded committee as the vehicle to try to accomplish her goal. When Republicans regain the majority in the U.S. House after the midterm election in November, the committee will be shuttered because it’s an un-American inquisition that makes a mockery out of checks and balances, minority rights, historical precedent and the rules of the House. This means that Ms. Cheney can only accomplish her goal if Mrs. Pelosi remains speaker of House in the next Congress. Another two years of Mrs. Pelosi in power would be catastrophic for our constitutional republic, but that’s exactly what Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger are fighting for every day.

In Ms. Cheney’s recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, titled, “The Jan. 6 Committee Won’t Be Intimidated,” she writes, “those who do not wish the truth of Jan. 6 to come out have predictably resorted to attacking the process — claiming it is tainted and political.” When the Republican National Committee recently censured Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger, it marked the first time anyone associated with the Jan. 6 committee has been subject to a “check and balance” since its inception on July 1, 2021.

Ms. Cheney cries foul and accuses people of attacking the process and being against the truth because she doesn’t like being called on the carpet for participating in a fraudulent investigation. Never before in our nation’s history has a congressional committee that consists of seven Democrats, two RINOs, and zero real Republicans been allowed to proceed — let alone granted legitimacy — as an investigative body that represents the will of the people.

The American people should be concerned with how the Jan. 6 committee is set up. This panel is operating more like a secret grand jury that is abusing its deposition power, subpoena power and contempt power on a routine basis. Are career politicians and journalists going to treat the select committee on Biden Family Corruption that’s coming next year with the same indifference? Let’s be clear — you can’t wreak havoc on rules and precedent just because Mr. Trump is the target; America doesn’t work that way. When the RNC resolution passed, the biased corporate media went “all in” to protect this committee just like it protected the failed Mueller and Schiff investigations.

With all due respect to Ms. Cheney, the committee she’s leading is both “tainted and political” for obvious reasons. Look no further than her unfortunate reaction to the censure resolution. She immediately took to social media — in an act of pure political theater — to advance the liberal media’s big lie that RNC members think breaking into the U.S. Capitol Building and causing a riot is “legitimate political discourse.”

This is a disgusting smear by people who know better. The truth is that the horrible events of Jan. 6 caused by the people who broke into our nation’s shrine of democracy aren’t the focus of Ms. Cheney’s political circus, and everyone knows it. The committee is instead focused on Speaker Pelosi’s political enemies. Just look at the bloated subpoena list. It’s a who’s who of Trump supporters who were either not in Washington on Jan. 6 or had nothing to do with the riot. Innocent Americans asking tough questions about the administration of a razor-thin unprecedented pandemic election dominated by absentee ballots, untested universal mail-in voting, and insecure drop boxes is a protected act in our country whether the elites like it or not.

If the Jan. 6 committee were truly interested in facts and opposed exaggeration as Ms. Cheney claims, it would not be doctoring and selectively leaking text messages and turning a blind eye to exculpatory evidence that the Department of Justice is making public in indictments of the actual rioters.

If the committee had an operating minority with real Republican members, complete with staff, resources and rights, surely it would have publicized the news that one of the rioters typed a message on Jan. 6 about Mr. Trump that said, “I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough.” Ms. Cheney could level with the American people about the importance of this evidence in her search for the truth, but it doesn’t fit her narrative.

In 1998 former Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman, who was the ranking member of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee at the time, wrote in a congressional report that “successful congressional investigations have always been conducted on a fair and bipartisan basis. The best investigations have gone to great lengths to involve the minority and protect the rights of minority members.” Waxman was right then, and he’s right now almost 25 years later. The Jan. 6 committee would be wise to follow Mr. Waxman’s example and change course.

• David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and he served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.