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Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. The fight over how to remember or forget the events that took place on January 6th entered a new chapter yesterday, when Democrats and Republicans voted essentially along party lines to establish a select committee to investigate the attack on the US Capitol. The vote passed with a slim margin of 222 to 190 after only two Republicans voted for the resolution, including ousted Republican conference chair, Liz Cheney, and anti-Trump firebrand Republican Adam Kinzinger. Here's Nancy Pelosi the House Speaker, condemning her Republican colleagues ahead of yesterday's vote.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Many across the aisle, refuse to admit the truth. They refused to admit the truth, when they voted against certifying the President Biden’s election that night. They refused to admit the truth, when they voted against the creating of a bi-partisan commission to investigate the attack. They refused to admit the truth, when they called that day “our normal tourist visit”. Today, when many will vote against establishing a select committee to investigate that day, they will, again, refuse to admit the truth.

Brian: Nancy Pelosi yesterday, and here with me now, to talk about the politics behind this vote, what it means moving forward, and also some of the latest details from the investigations that are taking place into January 6th are Nicholas Wu, POLITICO congressional reporter, and Tom Dreisbach, NPR investigations correspondent. Nicholas, welcome back to the show and, Tom, welcome.

Nicholas Wu: Thank you.

Tom Dreisbach: Thank you.

Brian: Nicholas, listeners may be thinking, “Hey, didn't Republicans just filibuster an attempt to create a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6th?” What's different from what was proposed a month ago and failed in that way to what was voted on yesterday?

Nicholas: Well, the committee that was filibustered a month ago would have been a bi-partisan commission of outside experts. It actually barred sitting members of Congress from being on it. Whereas what the House voted to approve yesterday was this 13 member panel of members of Congress, which will inherently be a more partisan kind of issue. There would be eight members picked by Democrats and then five that are picked with consultation of Republicans. Speaker Pelosi actually just announced who exactly she was going to name, at least for the Democrats.

Brian: Break that news for us.

Nicholas: We've got this interesting mix of members. There's people who you might remember as playing prominent roles in the past impeachments of President Donald Trump, like [unintelligible 00:03:01] Zoe Lofgren of California, or Adam Schiff, also of California. But in a surprise pick, Pelosi actually picked a Republican among her choices as well. That is Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who's very much been an outspoken Trump critic in the weeks after the insurrection.

Brian: Interesting. Now, CNN was reporting earlier this morning, that House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader issued a blanket threat during a meeting yesterday with freshmen members of his caucus, that he would strip any Republican member of their committee assignments, if they accept an offer from Pelosi to serve on the select committee, can you confirm that report?

Nicholas: Yes. We confirmed it and actually caught up with Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, who's also been a Trump critic about that. He told me that yes, this threat was true but, as he put it very bluntly in different terms, “Who gives a crap?” For people like Kinzinger and Cheney, they really brushed off this threat from McCarthy because for them, they see this investigation to what exactly happened on the sixth as more important to them, there's a standing among current among house Republicans right now.

Brian: Liz Cheney and other Republicans?

Nicholas: Yes. Liz Cheney and Kinzinger really see trying to get to the bottom of January 6th as more important than their standing among other [crosstalk].

Brian: Those are the only two Republicans who are going to be on the committee?

Nicholas: We don't know-- it doesn't appear that Congressman Kinzinger is going to be on the committee right now, although there was a lot of speculation that Pelosi also could have picked him. For now, it's just Cheney, and then we'll be hearing from Minority Leader McCarthy a little bit later this morning. We'll see if he has anything to say about whether he’ll name anyone. There was some speculation that he might not.

Brian: He has the power to name some Republicans to this select committee?

Nicholas: He can present his recommendations to Speaker Pelosi, but Pelosi will have final veto power over those people.

Brian: I see. Because I had heard that some Democrats say they're afraid McCarthy may try to appoint his most incendiary members, conservatives who are also most likely to use those committee seats to defend Trump, maybe a Matt Gaetz or a Lauren Boebert or somebody like that, any possibility that that would actually fly?

Nicholas: Those folks have certainly raised their hands about wanting to join. I asked Congressman Gaetz about that a couple of days ago. He said with a grin on his face that he should be on there because he asked good questions. There's a real fear among that having people like that on the committee could potentially undermine whatever investigation they go through. It remains to be seen exactly how this is going to shake out, but there's very much a possibility that Pelosi could simply say “No” to the Republican recommendations for the panel.

Brian: Since they didn't agree to a joint bi-partisan committee, it is a Pelosi committee. She'll get the final say. I guess there are going to be image problems on all sides of that, depending on whom McCarthy tries to name, and who Pelosi might reject. All right, Tom Dreisbach, NPR investigations correspondent, I see you've been reporting on the actors involved in the events of January 6th, focusing recently on the Capitol police, and some GOP leaders have said that a recent Senate investigation into policing failures on January 6th should suffice over this commission. Can you remind us about what investigations are already underway, and who's leading them?

Tom: Sure. The biggest cases to pay attention to an investigations are the actual criminal cases stemming from the January 6th Capitol Riot. So far, an NPR has been tracking every single criminal case stemming for the events. We have more than 500 at this point. That includes both federal cases and cases that are being handled in Washington, DC, Superior Court. Those tend to be a bit less serious. We have those massive criminal investigations. The FBI and the Department of Justice have said, it's the largest single domestic terrorist investigation they have ever done in their history.

At the same time, we had that bi-partisan Senate report, which you mentioned, which examined security failures, failures of planning by the Capitol police, other law enforcement to plan for this. At the same time, we also have a Capitol police inspector general who has been looking into that agency's response to what happened on January 6th. The contention from supporters of the select committee is that in some ways, these investigations are piecemeal and don't get at the root causes of what caused January 6th and the insurrection.

That they want to look holistically at what happened, who's responsible, to what extent was there coordination among the actors who were involved, and what are the ways that we can take to prevent a similar event in the future?

Brian: Well, one of the arguments, Tom, that Republicans make on the political side for not having another committee is that the investigations are already underway. They're underway from the FBI and the Justice Department. There was that Senate committee that we referred to, and all these criminal cases. Did you say 500?

Tom: More than 500 at this point, yes.

Brian: All these people charged, there's discovering in all of those cases, there's investigations. All that a congressional committee would be doing is committing a political act to make sure that this is front and center during the 2022 mid-term congressional election campaigns, when really all the truth of January 6th is going to come out in all these grassroots investigations around the country. For you, as an investigative reporter, looking into the details, how true do you think that might be?

Tom: Well, it's important to remember that these criminal cases are really narrowly focused on the question of whether an individual committed a crime on January 6th, and what evidence the Justice Department can bring to bear in each of those cases to demonstrate that whether they prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that someone actually did commit those crimes. It's really not looking at root causes or other issues. It's really quite narrowly focused. We also have this bi-partisan Senate report looking into these issues, but what we have lacked is a holistic approach.

As a journalist covering this, one of the frustrations for us is looking at the Capitol police, which is the frontline agency that was responsible for security on January 6th. Unlike other federal agencies, they are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I can't file a request to them for various documents about their planning but discussions about how to prevent the attack, various training documents, that kind of thing, because they're organized under Congress, and Congress is exempt from FOIA.

As a journalist, looking at these events, the select committee does have the opportunity to illuminate more information about what was happening inside the Capitol police and the decision-making process that went on before January 6th. Then actually on the day of what kind of decisions were being made by management while they were trying to manage this incredibly chaotic situation at the Capitol.

Brian: Nicholas, same question for you as a political reporter covering Congress. How much is Pelosi just trying to create an issue for the 2022 campaign versus how much new information they can really discover?

Nicholas: Well, it depends really on who you ask. If you talk to Republicans one of their biggest concerns about this committee is that the Democrats might just use it as a way to attack Trump, and the way that many Democrats saw Republicans Benghazi Committee several years back as a way of attacking Hillary Clinton. Democrats, of course, will say that this is really one of the ways for them to get to the bottom of what happened on the 6th. That there still is a lot that we don't know, for example, what exactly the White House was doing that day. We don't know that.

As Tom, mentioned a lot of these agencies involved in this also were not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. There could be legal battles, but this committee will have the ability to issue subpoenas and really try to dig further at what happened. The problem is, though, is that because this is a partisan panel, there is the risk that it could be clouded by partisan fights over witnesses, documents, and even how to run the body.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Rose, in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Rose.

Rose: Hi, Brian. I just was recently visiting Kentucky, which is my home state. I have a relative there who's very conservative, evangelical Christian. He was at the insurrection, and he went with a group of people from Kentucky, but he's still very nervous about whether the FBI is going to come knocking at his door. I found that really interesting because there was so much bluster around the insurrection itself among people who participated. Now it seems to have turned to a fear of arrest or retribution of some kind. It's hard to talk to him about it because we disagree massively on all kinds of politics, but I found that interesting that he is still nervous about that.

Brian: Tom Dreisbach, can you comment on that? On when the FBI does go knocking on people's doors, whether or not they're suspected of actually committing acts of violence or other seriously illegal acts that day.

Tom: Well, it really depends on what someone might've done on the day of January 6th, whether-- in terms of kind of the buckets of charges that we've seen so far, I would say the largest group of people facing charges are those who simply breached to the building, but are not accused of specific acts of violence. Then there's people who have committed or allegedly committed violence, such as assaults on police officers, but there's close to 100 people who are facing such charges. Then some of the most serious cases involve allegations of conspiracy, people who are accused of pre-planning, coordinating discussions of bringing body armor weapons to the Capitol, that thing.

One of the things is that we know is that the FBI is still very much actively looking at these cases. Yesterday was one of the biggest days for arrests related to January 6th. It really depends on what this individual may have done on January 6th, whether the FBI might be looking for them, looking to talk to them and learn more about what happened on the 6th, from their perspective, or what kind of involvement they may have had. I can confirm that the FBI is most definitely still looking for people. There's an estimated 800 people who actually did breach the Capitol, according to the Capitol police. With 500 charges that we know of, that leaves several 100 more that the FBI is certainly looking for.

Brian: Rose, I'm curious. How does your brother or-- no, you didn't say “brother”. Some relative, whoever this relative is, how did they feel about their participation in this at this point?

Rose: Well, I think he's still glad that he went. He won't say whether he was in the building or not, which sort of makes me think he was. This has also created a little bit of a discussion with other family members about whether we should somehow give his information to the FBI. We've so far decided not to, but that presents an interesting dilemma for people, too, if they don't agree. I don't know. I think he's happy he went. I just think he's also got that little free zone of fear in the background.

Brian: Rose, thank you very much. I hope everything works out for everybody in your world. Tom, your colleague NPR’s Tim Mack reported recently about the status of the Proud Boys, writing that despite increasing notoriety, the organizational structure of the Proud Boys has been hobbled since January 6th. I'm curious if you have a perspective on how that has played out, whether the Proud Boys or other related movements have been strengthened or weakened by January 6th, then its reputation.

Tom: Well, if you think back to 2020 and the end of the year, the Proud Boys experienced a real boost of notoriety. President Trump at a presidential debate rather than denounce the group, told them to, “Stand back and stand by.” That actually led to a surge, according to the group itself, a surge of new people into the Proud Boys. They were riding fairly high. They had what they felt was the backing of the President of the United States. Cut to January 6th, now we have more than two dozen people with alleged ties to the group facing criminal charges, related to what happened.

Other extremist groups like the Oath Keepers, they also have alleged members who are facing charges. A group of militiamen known as the Three Percenters, that they are also facing charges. What we've seen so far is a real splintering of some of these groups. Just after January 6th, the Proud Boys' leader Enrique Tarrio, he was revealed to have been a federal informant in the past, by a news report from Reuters. Some members of the group really took offense at that. They didn't want one of their leaders having cooperated with the feds, which are now charging other members of their group related to January 6th.

When events like this happen with extremist groups, there tends to be a splintering work. Certain people who may not have been as committed to the goals of the group or committed to some of the tactics that prosecutors say they allegedly use, those people will disconnect from the group. We've heard from people who said, “I don't want to be part of the Proud Boys anymore,” given what we've seen from these federal prosecutors. At the same time, there's sometimes the people who are much more hardcore members, who are just as committed as they were to begin with.

But there's no question that the charges that have been brought by the Department of justice have put a lot of strain on these organizations.

Brian: Interesting. Nicholas Wu, and our last just 15 seconds, like soundbite, when will we know who the Republicans on this select investigations committee are going to be? How will they proceed?

Nicholas: We'll know that possibly as soon as today, when Leader McCarthy gives us remarks

Brian: Then on they will go into the next phase of figuring out January 6th itself and its underpinnings in our country. Nicholas Wu, POLITICO congressional reporter, and Tom Dreisbach, NPR investigations correspondent. Thank you both for your time today.

Tom: Thanks for having me.

Nicholas: Thank you so much.

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