White House Announces Biden's Plan to Milk Jan. 6 Anniversary for All It's Worth
The one-year anniversary of the Capitol incursion will be a time for Democrats to push their agenda anew.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will each offer speeches at the Capitol on Thursday, which will mark one year since a Washington, D.C., protest escalated when a segment of protesters flooded into the Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose hand-picked committee has been investigating the Capitol incursion — with a focus on finding blame within the administration of former President Donald Trump — is also getting in on the spectacle.
Pelosi plans a moment of silence on the House floor and a prayer vigil on the Capitol steps, according to CNN.
Further, according to Politico, Senate Democrats will try to use the day’s events as a catalyst to pass election rights legislation they pushed for last year.
The outlet reported that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will push the bill with the intent of focusing energy on Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who last year refused to join the Democratic plan to abolish the filibuster, so Democrats could use their current majority to full advantage.
The legislation would restore the Justice Department’s ability to review changes to election laws in state with a history of discrimination, a provision of the 1965 Vote Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. https://t.co/rvimCmFIoW
— WQAD (@wqad) January 3, 2022
“January 6 was one of the darkest days in our democracy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said, according to CNN. “It was a day when our nation’s capital was under attack, and I think there’s no question you’ll see us commemorate that day.”
As Democrats planned to use the day as part of the legislative agenda, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California scoffed at the actions Democrats have taken.
“[T]his week will mark one year from the riots at the Capitol. As we have said from the start, the actions of that day were lawless and as wrong as wrong can be. Our Capitol should never be compromised, and those who broke the law deserve to face legal repercussions and full accountability,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to fellow Republicans, which was posted on his website.
“Unfortunately, one year later, the majority party seems no closer to answering the central question of how the Capitol was left so unprepared and what must be done to ensure it never happens again,” he wrote.
“Instead, they are using it as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country,” he continued.
Trump announced last month that he will not let the one-year anniversary of the Capitol incursion go unmarked.
Trump said he has plans for a Thursday event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida during which he will hold a news conference.
Most of Trump’s statement was a jab at the House Select committee that Pelosi commissioned to investigate the Capitol incursion.
Trump said that the panel has political blinders on as it looks of the events of that day, which included a large peaceful protest as well as the incursion at the Capitol, in isolation
“Why isn’t the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the January 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election of 2020? Does anybody notice that they want to stay as far away from that topic as possible, the numbers don’t work for them, or even come close. The only thing they can do is not talk about it,” he said.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
