The vote killed the best chance for an independent accounting of the deadly Capitol attack, which Republicans feared would damage them politically.
Republicans on Friday blocked the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Jan.6 Capitol riot, using their filibuster power in the Senate for the first time this year to doom a full accounting of the deadliest attack on Congress in centuries. The vote was a stark display of political self-interest by Republicans determined to shield themselves from an inquiry that could have publicly tarnished their party. They feared an investigation that would remind voters of the consequences of Donald J. Trump’s election lies and how Republican lawmakers indulged them, spurring their supporters to violence. It all but guaranteed that there would be no comprehensive nonpartisan inquiry into the attack’s root causes, the former president’s conduct as his supporters threatened lawmakers and the vice president, or any connections between his allies in Congress and the rioters. While members of both political parties agreed in its immediate aftermath that an investigation was needed, most Republicans have since toiled to put the episode behind them, and some have actively sought to deny or play down the reality of what happened. On Friday, only six Republicans joined Democrats to support advancing the measure to create the independent commission. The final vote,54 to 35, fell short of the 60 senators needed to move past a Republican filibuster. The vote was a stinging defeat for proponents of the commission. They had argued that the only way to assemble a truly complete account of the riot for a polarized nation was through an inquiry modeled after the one into the Sept.11,2001, attacks, in which outside experts with subpoena power undertook a thorough study. Some Republicans expressed disgust with their own party for blocking it, saying that they had put politics over the finding of what promised to be a grim set of facts. “I don’t want to know, but I need to know,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the six Republicans who voted to form the commission. “To be making a decision for short-term political gain, at the expense of understanding and acknowledging what was in front of us on Jan.6 — I think we need to look at that critically.” While the Justice Department has opened hundreds of criminal cases against rioters, and congressional committees are likely to expand nascent inquiries, they will almost certainly confront limits that a commission staffed with national security experts, jointly appointed by Republicans and Democrats, would not. Among them are partisanship, defiant witnesses and turf wars that are likely to leave unanswered key questions about how the party rallied around Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lies and his demands that Republicans invalidate Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. “Do my Republican colleagues remember that day?” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, asked moments after the vote. “Do my Republican colleagues remember the savage mob calling for the execution of Mike Pence, the makeshift gallows outside the Capitol?” “Shame on the Republican Party for trying to sweep the horrors of that day under the rug because they are afraid of Donald Trump,” he added.
