Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said the American public doesn't trust the Jan. 6 commission.
"Instead of having a bipartisan commission, instead of having a cross examination of witnesses and the ability to call witnesses that challenge the narrative that the Democrats are putting forward — Speaker Nancy Pelosi kicked off Republicans who would have done that," Buck said Thursday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s "National Report" before the eighth prime-time Jan. 6 hearing.
"We should get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6, but what we need to have is a true open evidentiary form to get all the facts out," Buck said. "We have not heard a single word about what Speaker Pelosi knew, what she did, what she didn't do, why the National Guard wasn't put on notice earlier, why the police were not fully staffed at the time of the attack, all those kinds of questions.
“What President Trump did in asking the rioters to leave the capital has been minimized while other actions have been really focused on, without substantiation, without corroboration, and it concerns me that we're getting one side of the story and not even a truthful side of the story.”
The committee's focus at Thursday's hearing will be on the 187 minutes that elapsed between Trump concluding his speech at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, when he told his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, to when he released a video at 4:17 p.m. telling them to leave the Capitol.
The panel is expected to hear from two former White House officials who resigned on Jan. 6 in response to the incidents: Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary.
"The story we're going to tell tomorrow is that in that time, President Trump refused to act to defend that Capitol as a violent mob stormed the Capitol with the aim of stopping the counting of the electoral votes and blocking the transfer of power,” a Jan. 6 committee aide said Wednesday.
Trump was "directing a mob that he, the former president, knew was armed, pointing them toward the Capitol, telling them to 'fight like hell' and march to the Capitol and spurring them down Pennsylvania Avenue."
"This commission is unfortunately biased and partisan," Buck said.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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