Feehery: On ‘Independent’ commissions

I am ambivalent about “independent commissions.”

When I worked for the House Speaker after 9/11, we were afraid that any independent commission would become a political football and that the politics would lead to bad policy decisions.

We gave in after 9/11 widows successfully petitioned the Speaker to relent. The politics behind the Commission didn’t really hurt either side politically, and the policy recommendations didn’t significantly help cure the intelligence community. Adding more bureaucracy doesn’t usually add more efficiency and that was certainly the case with the new Director of National Intelligence.

Democrats (and the media) were pushing for 9/11-style commission investigation to see what actually happened on 1/6. We mostly know what happened. A bunch of outraged partisans stormed the Capitol and then ransacked the place.

We don’t know why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer didn’t insist on bolstering the security on a day when just about everybody knew things could get out of hand. We don’t know why the media misreported about how Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died. We still don’t know the name of the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbit. These are the questions that perhaps could have been answered had the commission been formed or maybe not.

You never know with these independent inquiries. The House of Representatives did an investigation about President Kennedy’s assassination and it directly contradicted the conclusions reached by the independent Warren Commission years before.

Pelosi called Republicans cowardly for not supporting her commission, but I don’t think it is cowardice. I think it more of a realization that the more Democrats focus on one day in January, the less time there is to focus on a whole year of questionable decisions, bad leadership and terrible behavior that led America to the brink of civil disunion.

2020 certainly has raised a lot of questions in my mind that are commission worthy.

Who funded all of those mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter protests that destroyed businesses, lives and livelihoods? Were foreign actors involved?

Why was antifa allowed to occupy the center of Portland, take over portions of Seattle and continue to terrorize who neighborhoods around the United States?

How much money has George Soros contributed to elect state attorneys around the country who don’t believe in the rule of law, whose first impulse is to release violent criminals and whose anti-law enforcement actions have led to a dramatic increase in violent crime in almost every major city? What exactly is he trying to do here?

How were violent protestors allowed to almost breach the walls of the White House and force President Trump to retreat into a bunker? Who paid for those protestors?

The BLM protests were bad. The COVID-19 shut down was worse.

Everybody wants to know now where the virus started, but my question is: What role did the Chinese government play in making policy makers and the public panic irrationally? How did they use social media to undermine the remnants of Western civilization? Was this an act of war?

Why did policy makers push mask mandates when we all know that masks weren’t the answer to our problems?

What happened to the CDC? When did it become such an incompetent organization?

Why were well-known treatments discarded or ignored? How many times did doctors unnecessarily kill patients by prematurely intubating them?

Why did social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, take an active role in suppressing free speech? What financial reasons were behind their suppression of any voice that raised questions about the origin of the virus? This is possibly criminal behavior and needs to be thoroughly investigated.

And when it comes criminal behavior, by suppressing news on the Hunter Biden laptop, wasn’t Facebook and Twitter actually giving an illegal in-kind campaign contribution to the Biden campaign? I don’t know. Just asking the question.

What happened on Jan. 6 wasn’t great, by any stretch of the imagination, but I trust policy makers will investigate what went wrong internally, because they have a vested interest in making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when he was majority whip and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).