We need aggressive, comprehensive, and public truth and consequences from the Jan. 6th select committee
An open letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Indivisible San Francisco, November 10, 2021
Regarding our July 23 letter with the headline Use the Remaining Five Appointments to Make Sure That the Select Committee on Jan. 6th Gets to the Bottom of the Insurrection, please see the specific retraction below.
We of Indivisible San Francisco wrote an open letter to you in July, in the hopes of influencing your coordination of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol. We sought a Jan. 6th Committee that would get to all of the facts of what happened, be effective at communicating the import of it to the public, and not be reticent to seek meaningful consequences for the perpetrators, no matter how high their station. Having seen the public performance of the Jan. 6th Committee to date, which has been in some ways admirable and in other ways alarmingly inadequate to the nationally-existential stakes and urgency of the matter, we reiterate some prior expectations and augment them with others, as follows:
Empower the Select Committee to call upon the Sergeant at Arms to enforce contempt of Congress violations if any witnesses refuses to testify or give false or non-responsive answers. In particular, renew the House’s inherent contempt enforcement authority of confinement.
We appreciate the referral of Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice for criminal contempt of Congress. The DoJ’s ambiguity as to whether they will pursue the charge is disturbing, and they seem to be lacking in haste. There are sure to be other recalcitrant witnesses, such as Jeffrey Clarke and Michael Flynn, so the investigation—and the country—would benefit if you were to assert Congress’s legitimate authorities to the fullest extent.We have now learned even more about the challenging necessity of investigating certain U.S. representatives and senators and calling them as witnesses, using subpoenas. Finish the work that the second Trump impeachment started, and go through with it. Make it explicit that the Select Committee will recommend for expulsion from Congress those members who aided and abetted the insurrectionist riot.
Regardless of whether expulsion proceedings are likely to succeed (given the two-thirds final vote threshold) it is your oath-bound duty to officially seek expulsion for such offenses. It is also important to the country that you take votes on these violations and get congresspeople on the record regarding such breaches. (The House did the right thing and impeached Trump twice even though Senate conviction was, tragically, unlikely. Many more articles of impeachment for Trump and his administration cronies would have also been well worth it. See Indivisible San Francisco/Indivisible East Bay’s model impeachment hearing videos for examples.) To refrain from seeking to expel Congressional collaborators is to make any future statements that “this is unacceptable” a lie.Your investigation must include the White House and Trump, the House and Senate sergeants at arms, the chief of the Capitol Police, and the military—to document the details that have emerged in the press recently about their covert plans for a possible coup, the reasons military leaders didn't send the National Guard when asked to do so, the sergeants’ and Capitol Police’s supposed advance plan for security that they kept secret from congresspeople, and other critical matters.
Make it explicit that the committee will refer individuals to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution as appropriate, depending upon what the Select Committee finds per the requirements of 18 U.S. Code § 2383 governing insurrection.
The Select Committee will be exposing the role white supremacist authoritarianism played in fomenting the malevolent discontent among supporters of Donald Trump, which was then aimed at destroying our democratically-elected government. Make sure the public is aware that it was white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and others, who were key participants in the riot.
Documenting the participation of off-duty law enforcement officials and members of the military in the insurrection will help focus national attention on the enduring racism in their ranks. It will also be useful to examine how inherent racial and political biases of some law enforcement officials affected their preparations for and reactions to protests by People of Color and progressive groups compared to those for protests by white domestic terrorists and right-wing organizations.
We trust your investigation will not avoid documenting the right wing groups that provided funding for the planning and execution of January 6th insurrection, even though they have also funded the campaigns of some of your Republican colleagues. The insurrection was a logistically complex event, and a variety of conservative groups paid for the planning meetings, sound systems, chartered busses, legal support, tactical gear, etc.
Make many more of the hearings public. This should be an investigation that commands the nation’s attention, that gets to the bottom of every significant relevant story, that directly addresses the racism that fueled the insurrection (and that is fueling further violent threats to our form of government), and that obtains accountability and justice with real consequences. We need more public hearings and fewer reports that insurrection-affiliated witnesses only "met with the committee behind closed doors."
Demonstrate to the country and the world that you are not just going through the motions but are doing whatever it takes to get real consequences for the main perpetrators of the Jan. 6th insurrection, including ex-president Trump, both for justice and to preclude the Republicans from ever doing it again. Be willing to do things unilaterally as Democrats, things to which even Cheney and Kinzinger might object.
The House prosecution for the second Trump impeachment failed to call witnesses, even after the Senate voted for it, and so they abruptly cut short a full accounting for the insurrection. We need you to deploy the full unilateral powers of the House of Representatives and see it all the way through. Fear of Republicans turning the tables if they regain the majority is no excuse, especially as there are no more low-risk paths to truth, justice, and salvaging of American democracy. A successful Jan. 6 investigation would mean Trump and other top cronies facing prosecutions, disqualification of him and other insurrectionist politicians from federal office, and a national reckoning with rooting out white supremacist political, economic, and social structural power.
Retraction of the Headline of our July 23 letter
Indivisible SF had written an open letter to Speaker Pelosi with the headline Use the Remaining Five Appointments to Make Sure That the Select Committee on Jan. 6th Gets to the Bottom of the Insurrection. Speaker Pelosi’s staff called to remind us that the House rules governing the Jan. 6th Committee—rules agreed upon in concert with a fraction of Republicans in order to secure bipartisan support for the committee to be formed—stipulate that the seats currently unfilled are for potential Republican appointees only. Therefore, we have retracted that request. Also, our thanks to the Speaker’s staff for inviting revised expectations for the January 6 Committee.