Nancy Pelosi Rigs an Investigation
By choosing an ultra-partisan to investigate the January 6 riot, the speaker hopes to avoid accountability for the lack of security.
Nancy Pelosi must really not want to get to the bottom of what happened at the Capitol building on January 6.
More specifically, she must really want a one-sided investigation with a predetermined outcome that says supporters of former President Donald Trump are entirely to blame. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have chosen Russel Honoré to lead the investigation.
If we had to guess, we’d say we’re in for a dose of Frank Drebin: Nothing to see here!
Many of you will remember the colorful Honoré, a retired Army lieutenant general, from his work in 2005 in the wake of Category 5 Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and numerous neighboring communities along the Gulf Coast. In his role as commander of the joint task force, Honoré supervised military relief efforts for the area and once memorably told a reporter not to get “stuck on stupid” in response to a question about the government’s relief response.
More recently, though, the general has taken to running his soup cooler about Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans.
In 2017, after Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico, Honoré told CNN’s Erin Burnett, “The president has shown again he don’t give a damn about poor people. He doesn’t give a damn about people of color.”
And just last month, Honoré tweeted out this semi-coherent rant about Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz: “This little peace [sic] of s—t with his Yale law degree should be run out of DC and Disbarred ASAP.” Not entirely satisfied, he tagged both senators, called them “a—hats,” adding, “these Yale and Harvard law grads is [sic] high order white privilege.”
But wait. There’s more. A brief spin through the general’s Twitter account indicates he’s an ultra-partisan Trump hater. You might also check out Tucker Carlson’s recent take on Honoré:
Carlson says Honoré has already made up his mind about the riot and who’s responsible. “Nancy Pelosi says General Russel Honoré has been, quote, ‘assessing our security needs by reviewing what happened on January 6, and how we must ensure that it does not happen again,’” Carlson said. “But that’s not right. General Honoré already has come to conclusions about what happened on January 6. He’s been very public about that. And you should know what those conclusions are and what kind of person he is. Just because his title is ‘general’ doesn’t mean that he’s sane or not a wild-eyed partisan. On the day after the Capitol riot, Honoré suggested it was an inside job, and that the sergeant-in-arms might be implicated in the plot.”
And he said all this without offering any evidence. Honoré’s Wikipedia page has more of the same unhinged conspiratorial vibe: “On January 7, 2021 Honoré speculated that those in charge of security at the Capitol could have been ‘complicit’ in the attack: ‘By a percentage, 30 to 40 percent of the officers are Trumpsters. That’s a fact Jack.’ On the same day he called for a boycott of companies advertising on Fox News, claiming that Sean Hannity is a Russian asset: "These are Sean Hannity’s leading advertisers. PLEASE stop buying their s—t stocks Sean Hannity speaks #Russian iNFO OPERATIONS TO SUCK UP TO #45.”
Do these sound like the thoughtful musings of a man capable of leading a balanced and thorough investigation into the events of January 6? Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson doesn’t think so. “General Honoré,” he tweeted, “is an extreme partisan and should be the LAST person to head up an investigation of what happened at the Capitol on Jan 6th.”
As for Nancy Pelosi, who as House speaker is responsible for all operational decisions made within the House, what did she know about security provisions at the Capitol building and when did she know it? In a letter sent to Pelosi on Monday by House Republicans Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Rodney Davis, and James Comer, they asked some interesting questions. Such as: “When then-[Capitol Police] Chief Sund made a request for National Guard support on January 4th, why was that request denied?” And: “Why are your House Officers refusing to comply with preservation and production requests to turn over request materials relevant to the events of January 6th?”
We’re not sure what Pelosi is trying to hide, but we do know that she’s engaged in political theater. And if we’re ever to learn the whole truth about last month’s Capitol riot, it’ll be in spite of her, not because of her.
