Susan Collins Says She Supports a 1/6 Commission — But Has Two Procedural Conditions
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said she would support the creation of a January 6th commission, but she has some conditions for the version currently being proposed in Congress.
Months after Collins pronounced Donald Trump personally responsible for the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and voted to convict the former president, the senator gave a wide-ranging interview on Sunday to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. One of the topics that came up was Senate Republicans threatening to derail the proposed congressional commission to investigation the Capitol riots, which passed in a 252 to 175 House vote.
Collins has expressed support for forming a January 6th commission, though as Stephanopoulos noted, she has outlined a number of procedural demands she wants to see out of it.
“Now you’re saying you’re going to support the commission only under certain conditions, including that it wrap up this year, which appears pretty unrealistic,” Stephanopoulos said. “Why are you opposed to voting for the commission as passed by the House?”
Collins objected to Stephanopoulos’ framing as she answered “I strongly support the creation of an independent commission.” She continued by outlining her 2 conditions for the commission, saying she thinks they’re “resolvable.”
We need to figure out how we can enhance security, why we weren’t better prepared, and we want the Capitol to be an open, accessible symbol of our democracy. So I support the creation of a non-partisan, bipartisan commission. The two issues — that I think are resolvable — one has to do with staffing, and I think that both sides should either jointly appoint the staff, or there should be equal numbers of staff appointed by the chairman, and the vice chairman.
The second issue is I see no reason why the report cannot be completed by the end of this year. The commissioners have to be appointed within ten days. There’s plenty of time to complete the work, and I’m optimistic that we can get past these issues based on recent conversations I have had with the Speaker of the house, and the House majority leader.
Watch above, via ABC.
