Rep. Peter Meijer: Pelosi Doesn't Want Official Jan. 6 Commission

Rep. Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican who voted for the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, said Sunday he hopes that a Jan. 6 commission will prove to be a way to set partisan politics aside, but he fears that members of his party are playing into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hands by rejecting the measure. 

“By shooting down this proposal that looks like it may be dead on arrival in the Senate, by shooting this down, we’re playing into Speaker Pelosi’s hands,” said the Michigan Republican on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “She doesn’t want a commission that’s going to be emphasizing what she knew and when, what security lapses may have occurred, what failures there were in responsiveness to the events that happened that day that allowed the security barrier to fall.”

Meijer was one of 35 House Republicans to vote on the bipartisan measure for an independent commission, and said that it’s important to remember that Pelosi started off her demands with a “stacked” commission that “would have run roughshod over any partisan committee, that was much more styled on a Benghazi commission.”

She was rebuked by Democrats, he added, and ended up agreeing to a bipartisan committee that was “along the same lines as what our leadership was seeking for a Jan. 6 commission.”

Pelosi also does not want a commission that, by mandate, must end its investigation by the end of the year, Meijer said. 

“She wants a commission that she can drag out into 2024, and that’s what we’re handing her,” said Meijer. “She is being given the tacit ability to run that forward.”

He added that Republicans opposing the commission are “missing an opportunity” to focus on an objective assessment for the American people, said Meijer, as a commission would provide an “authoritative document” that would help the country move past the event and not “whitewash” it. 

Meijer also said he’s concerned about the conspiracy theories being touted by members of his party in connection with the 2020 election, especially during the audit of election results continuing in Arizona. 

“I’m certainly worried when you start to hear that they’re bringing in microscopes to look for traces of bamboo because of the supposition that these were all brought in by China,” said Meijer. “When you start going down rabbit holes there will be a fabrication of one sort or another. To me, that’s what’s really worrying. If you are latched on to a fiction, you will find things to support it.”

At this point, there has been a “two-tiered reality” created that includes “one alternative existence where if you feel that it should be so, you can find the evidence to prove it,” said Meijer. “That’s where I was hoping that the Jan. 6 commission could be that objective examination. Again, a lot of folks may dismiss it as a product of the swamp, as tainted in one shape or form, but it could be the closest thing we could get that may be somewhat factual and clear away the fantasies and fiction surrounding Jan. 6 and events preceding it.”

Meijer also slammed fellow freshman GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green for her comparison of mask requirements in the House to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews during the Holocaust while speaking on Real America’s Voice on Friday.

“Any comparisons to the Holocaust is beyond reprehensible,” he said. “I don’t even have words to describe how disappointing it is to see this hyperbolic speech that frankly amps up the anti-Semitism we’re seeing, vicious attacks on the streets in New York and Los Angeles.”

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